Between Heritage and Film – Voices of the community

The project “Between Heritage and Film” is carried out in partnership with the associations Teatar od Soli (Tkon), Pulska filmska tvornica (Pula) and Arla (Đakovo), as well as numerous primary schools and cultural institutions across Croatia.
The educational program Between Heritage and Film is designed to engage teachers, students, film professionals and the interested public in exploring and understanding cultural and historical heritage through the medium of film. The emphasis is on preserving and reinterpreting tangible and intangible heritage through audiovisual creativity, encouraging creative reflection and documentation of cultural phenomena, and recognizing the cultural resources of local communities.

All programs take place at: Boškovićeva 23, Zagreb (Croatian Association of Film Authors and Producers)

Monday, 24 November 2025 / Tuesday, 25 November 2025

Heritage–Animation Workshop “Animated Heritage”

• Workshop leaders: Marko Zdravković Kunac and Sanda Letonja-Marjanović (Pulska filmska tvornica)
• Attendance required on both days
• Maximum number of participants: 10
• Age: 15+
• Schedule:
  • Monday 16:00–18:00
  • Tuesday 16:00–18:30
• Applications: https://forms.gle/9GLHpA4T1xpgUtdt8

About the Workshop

A creative workshop that opens new perspectives on everyday objects, intended for young people—and all those who feel young.
Each participant brings to the workshop one original object that is special and dear to them: a souvenir from a trip, an item of clothing, a toy, a hat, art supplies, a sculpture, a favorite gift…
Participants work on animation tables: drawing and transforming one drawing of the object into another, with each participant continuing the transformation where the previous one left off. The final result is a loop animation.
This is followed by recording a voice-over with impressions, legends, and stories related to the object.
The final outcome is a collective animation accompanied by the participants’ voices.
The workshop is designed to be active, experiential and fun – participants will learn through play, creative expression and teamwork.

About the Workshop Leaders

Marko Zdravković-Kunac is the founder of the ritual theater Menerik. In the late 1990s he became the program director of ATTACK and co-founded the FAKI Festival (1998). In 1999 he founded the Fade In collective with young filmmakers, where as a producer and journalist he created more than 150 socially engaged reports for Croatian Television and other projects.
In 2004 he founded the Pulska filmska tvornica (Pula Film Factory), dedicated to developing film culture, film production and education. He produced the TV show Medionauti (2016–2019) and the documentary series Istarske štorije (2017–2021). At PFT he has led numerous workshops and produced more than one hundred films.

Sanda Letonja-Marjanović graduated in Design and Audiovisual Communications at the University of Pula. Since 2011 she has coordinated the first Time Bank in Croatia. At PFT in 2012 she filmed her first fiction-documentary hybrid How Tina Imagines My Wedding, awarded at the 43rd Review of Croatian Film and Video Creativity. She has directed the music video Love Moon (2012), the children’s short fiction With Love, Water (2013), the documentary No People (2014), and the fiction film Journey to the Sacred Mountain (2015). She is the screenwriter and director of the episodes Forest of Verđina and Hejana heja in the series Istrian Stories. She has mentored more than 20 workshops at PFT.

Pulska filmska tvornica is an association for film education and production that encourages and supports the development of film authors through theoretical and practical programs. Although officially founded in 2009, it has been active since 2004, when a documentary film workshop was launched together with the Pula Film Festival—soon growing into year-round programs due to the great interest of young creators. Since then, more than 300 films have been made within its club and professional production. In addition to programs for youth and adults, it also runs numerous children’s educational programs—from the School of Animated Film to new media culture programs—fostering creativity and film literacy among new generations.

Monday, 24 November 2025

“Film Manipulation & The Forbidden Film”

• Lecture by Boris Bakal (Shadow Casters)
• Time: 19:00

Film has always been both magic and weapon. What captivates us through light on the screen often hides darker intentions—ideological, religious, political, or purely profit-driven. From the “children’s fairy tales’’ of the Cold War and obscure soft-porno classics filmed on the Adriatic, to the brutal masterpieces of Pasolini, Makavejev, Vreven and Stojanović, the history of film is filled with bans, omissions, fabrications, and manipulations.
Our lecture guides you through fragments of films that subtly manipulate the truth as well as fragments of films that have been silenced, removed, locked away or distorted—not because they were bad, but because they were dangerous. Dangerous for regimes, for religions, for markets, for the status quo.

The lecture “Film and Manipulation – Forbidden Films” explores the mechanisms of power that decide what we are allowed to see and what remains hidden in archives. Beneath the layers of censorship, we uncover how film can be both a mirror and a lure—and also the most sophisticated persuasion machine.

Teaser: “Art is the only proof that dreams exist – and film is the most beautiful lie. Come discover why some dreams had to be forbidden.”

Boris Bakal is a theatre and film director, actor, intermedia artist, activist, writer, public historian, curator, advocate of modernist architectural heritage, educator, and co-founder and artistic director of the association Shadow Casters. Over more than forty years of his career, he has created, produced and developed theatre and film projects, performances, multimedia installations, and launched cultural-social-political initiatives presented and/or produced in over twenty countries around the world.

Shadow Casters are a multi-award-winning artistic and production platform for interdisciplinary collaboration, creativity and reflection on intermedia art. Their work seamlessly intertwines filmmaking, international cooperation, theatre performances, urban intermedia projects, activism, pedagogy, video art and curatorial practice into a cohesive artistic activity.

Wednesday, 26 November 2025

“Artistic Transformations of Space”

• Lecture by Boris Bakal (Shadow Casters)
• The lecture presents possible proposals—artistic, film-related and cultural—for transforming, adapting and repurposing spaces, which Shadow Casters and their founders have developed over the past 40 years. In doing so, the heritage discourse includes space as a resource for temporary or permanent reuse and activation.
• Time: 18:00

Critical Screening: There’s Always Tomorrow (dir. Paola Cortellesi)

• Time: 20:00
• In collaboration with CinEd Croatia

CinEd is the largest EU network and VOD platform for film literacy. Since 2015 it has offered a free program for teachers, professors, educators and other professionals and citizens interested in teaching children and youth about film and through film. Shadow Casters have led the project in Croatia since 2019.

Project Support

City of Zagreb – Office for Culture and Civil Society
Ministry of Science, Education and Youth

The project is also implemented through the Clubture network supported by:
Ministry of Culture and Media,
City of Zagreb – Office for Culture and Civil Society,
National Foundation for Civil Society Development through the Knowledge Centers program

Support for Shadow Casters:
City of Zagreb – Office for Culture and Civil Society,
Kultura Nova Foundation,
Croatian Audiovisual Centre (HAVC) & National Foundation for Civil Society Development