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Artistic vision

The Festival is open to all new, creative, innovative, personal, radical, subversive etc. work (film, video, new media), of all lengths and genres, preferably from outside the mainstream, whether it’s involving traditional film techniques, or the latest technology of digital image.

“The energy and the artist’s personal vision we may feel in some of the works presented at the Festival might alter a little our conscience, lower our self-importance, thus helping us to break the chains that bind us to our everyday habits and hopefully let us endure and even find a delight in this horrible, yet the most beautiful world.”

1996 Festival Catalogue

History

The International Festival of New Film / Split Film Festival is the oldest international film / media manifestation of the Republic of Croatia. Ever since it was instituted in Split in 1996, the Festival promotes new, creative, personal, experimental, radical and subversive works, of all lengths, styles and genres, generally produced outside the mainstream, all the while keeping its primary focus on excellence and outstanding achievements.The Festival programme comprises a selection of titles from recent world film production, films screened and awarded on many well-known (Rotterdam, Berlinale, Cannes) and lesser-known festivals around the world. In addition, these are generally all Croatian premieres, which is why the Festival’s programme is hailed as one of the most significant film festivals in Croatia.The International Competitions for Features and Shorts make for the core of the programme. Particular attention is paid to authors who do not hesitate to explore the aesthetic potential of film as medium, testing the boundaries of the visual language and thereby refining the taste of the audience. Two international juries bestow the Grand Prix upon the best features and shorts from the competitive sections.Aside from the competitions, the programme comprises – or has been known so far to comprise – the following sections: New Media (from the very beginnings supporting a more creative concept of moving pictures – for a few years, this was also a competitive programme juried by a number of world-renowned names), together with Forum 3, Gender, Reflections, Frame extended and Special Programme.As part of its aim to endorse the dialogue between the national and the local cinemas on the one said, and their dialogue with the international film scene on the other, the Festival has realised a number of retrospectives, workshops, lectures and presentations of leading experts from the film art scene. To name but a few of the world-wide import, the retrospectives dedicated to Béla Tarr and Lars von Trier in 2001, as well as the retrospective of the Brazilian Cinema Novo and lesser-known works of Orson Welles. Also, the Festival has presented Croatian shorts in Rome and Paris.Furthermore, the Split Film Festival has realised many cultural projects of considerable significance over the particular editions. Some of the most famous examples are the 2011 international film workshop conducted by Béla Tarr, famous Hungarian director, the 2009 retrospective of Nam June Paik, one of the greatest contemporary artist and the father of video art, first drive-in cinema, 2013 Monument Film Retrospective with a lecture delivered by Peter Kubelka, the father of film avant-garde, as well as the multi-media Midnight Moment project that was realised the same year, in collaboration with the New York Streaming Museum.STFF is also known for its visual identity developed over the years, designs of (among others) Gorki Žuvela, Boris Ljubičić, Viktor Popović, Peter Bilak (the Netherlands) and Duje Škaričić. The Festival is well known for its specific style, posters and catalogues, not only across the country, but also worldwide.

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