Zagreb Film Festival 2026: 9 to 15 November, the 24th edition

The Zagreb Film Festival, ZFF to everyone in the city, holds its 24th edition from Monday 9 to Sunday 15 November 2026. It began in 2003 as a small festival of debut films and has become the largest international film event in Croatia, with around a hundred films in a week and a public that treats it as the cultural start of winter. The programme is built on competitions: international ones for feature films (first and second works by their directors) and for short films, the Ponovno s nama section for new work by directors ZFF has shown before, and Kockice, the Croatian competition for short films. Around them sit the non-competitive sections, retrospectives, a children's programme and the industry days.

Where it is shown

In 2026 the festival screens at Kaptol Boutique Cinema, at Kinoteka on Kordunska, at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Novi Zagreb and at Surogatkino in the KIC, and online on zff.hr. The list of cinemas changes with the year; the Museum of Contemporary Art lies across the Sava in Novi Zagreb and is best reached by tram. The festival club, where the audience meets the directors after the last screening, is the part regulars would not miss.

How to do the week well

• Read the competition catalogue rather than the stars: the point of ZFF is seeing directors before they are famous, and past winners have gone on to Cannes and the Oscars.
• Tickets cost 7 euros (KinoKino 6 euros) and are on sale online at kupiulaznicu.zff.hr; until 8 November they cost 1 euro less online. The good screenings go fast.
• The Croatian shorts competition is the fastest way into the local scene: eight films in 2026, directors in the room.
• Combine it with Interliber, the book fair at the Zagreb Fair, which is expected in the same week (dates still to be confirmed on zv.hr).

November in Zagreb is cold, often wet and, thanks to ZFF and the run-up to Advent, one of the liveliest months indoors. Hotels are at their cheapest of the year; book a room within walking distance of the lower town and let the trams do the rest.

Moving between the cinemas

The festival spreads across the lower town and, in most years, across the Sava as well, so plan the gap between screenings before you book two films in one evening. Kaptol Boutique Cinema, Kinoteka on Kordunska and KIC are on the city side of the river, all reachable from Ban Jelačić Square, which is where the trams converge. Novi Zagreb is the one leg that needs a tram and a little patience, and the ride back after a late screening is best checked against the night tram lines rather than assumed. Buy tram tickets from a kiosk or the machine before boarding, keep small change, and expect to stand in the cold at stops, because November evenings in Zagreb are wet more often than not.

What the winners actually win

Each of the main competitions ends with the same trophy, the Golden Pram, handed to the winner along with prize money. The pram is a joke about first steps that has outlived the joke: ZFF was founded around debut and second features, and the award marks a director who has just begun. Juries are international and small, and their decisions are read closely in the region, because a Golden Pram tends to travel with a film to other festivals. For you as a viewer, the practical effect is simple. The closing-night screening of the winner is the hardest ticket of the week, and the same films played to half-full rooms on a weekday afternoon a few days earlier.

Why the competition list is worth reading

The reason regulars trust the programme is the record. Early work by Sofia Coppola, Taika Waititi, Radu Jude, Xavier Dolan, Debra Granik, Andrej Zvjagincev and Teona Strugar Mitevska has played in the main competition here, in several cases years before those names meant anything outside festival circuits. The Croatian Audiovisual Centre calls ZFF the largest international film festival in Croatia, and the scale shows in how much of the week is first and second features rather than titles you have already read about. Pick two or three films you know nothing about. That is the way the festival is designed to be used, and the cheapest way to be early about something.

If you make films yourself

ZFF opens submissions for the following edition well in advance, and the categories are split between the international competitions and Checkers, the national competition for Croatian short films. For the 2026 edition the Checkers submission deadline was 15 September 2026, which is the pattern to watch if you are aiming at a later year: the national shorts deadline sits late, close to the festival itself, while the international feature and short deadlines fall much earlier in the year and usually come in an early and a standard round with different fees. Rules, entry forms and fees are published on zff.hr each spring.

Practical notes for the week

• Book accommodation in the lower town rather than near a single cinema: the walk between venues matters more than the walk to your bed.
• Bring a coat you can sit in comfortably and a bag that holds it, because cinema cloakrooms fill up on busy nights.
• Weekday afternoon screenings are the ones with seats left, and the directors attend those too.
• Check the venue on your ticket, not the film: two screenings an hour apart can be on opposite banks of the Sava.
• Eat before the evening block. Kitchens near the cinemas get slow between screenings, and the festival club is for drinking.
• Keep one evening free. The programme announces additional screenings of sold-out titles during the week.