
The Dawn
Croatian director Dalibor Matanic is one of the most exciting and lucid directors of current European cinema. After the film High Sun, for which he won a prestigious award in Cannes, he continued with his trilogy on love and politics casting the same brilliant actors: Tihana Lazovic and Kresimir Mikic. The Dawn is a complex psychological thriller dealing with personal trauma but also referring to nowadays divided and unequal societies.
While Matija’s family is struggling with the unhealed trauma of their child’s disappearance, the locals are fleeing the increasing radicalism that divides their community into a chosen elite and those considered inferior. Against his wife’s wishes, Matija plans to sell their home and move the family to the city. Throughout his journey from losing faith to finding his true self, he realizes that the only tools against trauma and evil are uncompromising confrontation and personal struggle.
Allegorically set in a very near future, so that identification with current actual events is inevitable, the film depicts a society experiencing a drastic political turn by using eloquent cinematic language. The director is juxtaposing intimate family relationships with a public political turmoil that results in a rising neo-Nazi movement.
ZORA
Croatia, Italy | 2020 | 126 min
DIRECTOR: Dalibor Matanic
PRODUCTION: Ankica Juric Tilic – Kinorama; Ascent Films
CAST: Kresimir Mikic, Tihana Lazovic, Maks Kleoncic, Lara Vladovic
SCREENPLAY: Dalibor Matanic
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Marco Brdar
EDITING: Tomislav Pavlic
Saturday 23.4. / 14:15h / Zaal 2
DUTCH PREMIERE
FESTIVALS & AWARDS (SELECTION)
Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival 2020 – Grand Prize nominee | Sofia International Film Festival 2021 | Belgrade International Film Festival 2021 | Pula Film Festival 2021 | Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2021