Fatherland to open the 20th Festival of Tolerance in Zadar, with La bola negra closing the anniversary edition
The 20th Festival of Tolerance will take place from 8 to 10 October 2026 at the Rector’s Palace and Providur’s Palace in Zadar. Paweł Pawlikowski’s Fatherland will open the anniversary edition, which closes with La bola negra by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi. Pawlikowski and the directing duo Calvo and Ambrossi shared the Best Director award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Admission to all festival events will be free.
Fatherland follows Thomas Mann and his daughter Erika as they return to Germany in 1949. Adapted from Alberto Conejero’s play La Piedra Oscura, La bola negra connects the lives of three men across three periods of a divided Spain. Lorca’s legacy runs throughout the film. These two films from Cannes bookend an edition in which history is a force that reshapes the characters’ lives.
Among the first titles announced is David Borenstein and Pavel Talankin’s Mr. Nobody Against Putin, winner of the 2026 Oscar for Best Documentary Feature Film and a Special Jury Award at Sundance in 2025. Itab Azzam and Jack MacInnes’s One in a Million won the Audience Award and the Directing Award in the World Cinema Documentary competition at Sundance in 2026. Eva Libertad’s Deaf (Sorda) received the Panorama Audience Award and the CICAE Art Cinema Award at the Berlinale.
Three films trace lives at a point when remaining on the sidelines is no longer possible: an individual standing up to propaganda, a girl growing up between the loss of home and new beginnings, and a woman embarking on motherhood in a world that still struggles to hear her experience. Perhaps this is the most concise description of this year’s programme: films whose framing, rhythms and closeness to their characters draw us so deeply into another person’s experience that, for a moment, we feel it from within.
The programme has been selected by Snježana Tribuson, Boško Picula and Ivica Perinović. Their selection foregrounds each filmmaker’s perspective, the characters and the cinematic worlds they inhabit. History, war, politics, belonging and responsibility find their way into families, relationships and everyday decisions. Distinct in tone, rhythm and cinematic language, these films trust their audiences to understand what can remain unspoken.
Twenty editions of remembrance and dialogue
The Festival of Tolerance grew out of the Zagreb Jewish Film Festival, the culture of Holocaust remembrance and Branko Lustig’s public work. His testimony and encounters with young people laid the foundations for a festival that, over twenty editions, has opened itself to other experiences of persecution, discrimination, war and forced displacement.
‘Branko Lustig taught me that remembrance becomes mere ritual if it does not change how we treat the living. That is why this is not a celebration of the past, but a promise to the future: that we will remain courageous, questioning and true to ourselves. That we will judge less, understand more and always see the person first,’ said Nataša Popović, Director of the Festival of Tolerance.
Conversations beyond the screen
Screenings will be accompanied by Tolerance Talks, moderated by presenter and educator Izabela Laura, as part of a programme the festival has been developing for more than a decade. There will also be an educational programme for children, young people and teachers. The full film programme and discussion participants will be announced shortly on the festival website and social media channels.
Zadar holds a special place for the festival because of its European heritage of peace. The city belongs to the European Network of Places of Peace, and the Monastery of St Francis, where the Peace of Zadar was signed in 1358, received the European Heritage Label this year as part of the ‘Places of Peace’ site. The festival’s setting has a particular resonance: the Two Palaces complex, comprising the Rector’s Palace and Providur’s Palace, was badly damaged during the shelling of Zadar in 1991. Restored, it is now a centre of the city’s cultural life and home to Zadar Concert Office’s activities.
A partnership in Zadar
Zadar Concert Office is becoming the festival’s principal long-term partner in Zadar and will contribute to its future programme development. The collaboration begins at the opening of the 20th edition, with Fatherland and a concert connected to the film and the music of Johann Sebastian Bach.
The 20th Festival of Tolerance is organised by the Association of the Festival of Contemporary Jewish Film Zagreb, with support from the City of Zadar, the Croatian Audiovisual Centre, UNHCR and other partners. Media partners are Novi radio and 24sata.
Partners and supporters were not involved in selecting the films, and their support does not imply endorsement of the films’ content or messages.
Programme information will be available at www.festivaloftolerance.com and on the festival’s official Facebook and Instagram channels.
Admission to all events is free.
Dvadeseti Festival tolerancije održat će se od 8. do 10. listopada 2026. u Zadru u prostoru Kneževe i Providurove palače. Jubilarno izdanje otvorit će Očevina (Fatherland) Paweła Pawlikowskog, a zatvoriti Crna kugla (La bola negra) Javiera Calva i Javiera Ambrossija. Pawlikowski te Calvo i Ambrossi podijelili su nagradu za najbolju režiju na ovogodišnjem Festivalu u Cannesu. Ulaz na sve festivalske programe bit će besplatan.
Očevina prati Thomasa Manna i njegovu kćer Eriku pri povratku u Njemačku 1949. Crna kugla, adaptirana prema drami La Piedra Oscura Alberta Conejera, povezuje živote trojice muškaraca u tri razdoblja podijeljene Španjolske. Lorcino nasljeđe prisutno je u filmu od početka do kraja. Dva filma s festivala u Cannesu tako otvaraju i zatvaraju izdanje u kojem povijest nije kulisa, nego sila koja mijenja živote likova.
Među prvim naslovima koje Festival najavljuje je Gospodin Nitko protiv Putina (Mr. Nobody Against Putin) Davida Borensteina i Pavela Talankina, dobitnik Oscara za najbolji dokumentarni film 2026. i posebne nagrade žirija Sundancea 2025. Jedna u milijun (One in a Million) Itab Azzam i Jacka MacInnesa na Sundanceu 2026. osvojila je Nagradu publike i nagradu za režiju u međunarodnoj dokumentarnoj konkurenciji. Gluha (Sorda) Eve Libertad osvojila je na Berlinaleu Nagradu publike programa Panorama i nagradu CICAE Art Cinema.
Tri filma, tri života u trenutku kada više nije moguće ostati po strani: pojedinac koji se suprotstavlja propagandi, djevojka koja odrasta između gubitka doma i novih početaka te žena koja ulazi u majčinstvo u svijetu koji još uvijek teško čuje njezino iskustvo.
To je možda i najkraći opis ovogodišnjeg programa: filmovi koji nas svojim kadrom, ritmom i blizinom likova uvode u tuđe iskustvo toliko da ga više ne promatramo izvana, nego ga na trenutak osjećamo.
Program su odabrali Snježana Tribuson, Boško Picula i Ivica Perinović. U prvom planu selekcije su autorski pogled, likovi i način na koji film gradi njihov svijet. Povijest, rat, politika, pripadnost i odgovornost ulaze u obitelj, odnose i svakodnevne odluke. Različiti po tonu, ritmu i filmskom jeziku, filmovi vjeruju gledatelju i onome što ne moraju izgovoriti da bi bilo razumljivo.
Festival tolerancije izrastao je iz Festivala židovskog filma Zagreb, kulture sjećanja na Holokaust i javnog djelovanja Branka Lustiga. Njegovo svjedočanstvo i susreti s mladima postavili su temelj iz kojeg se Festival tijekom dvadeset izdanja otvarao drugim iskustvima progona, diskriminacije, rata i prisilnog raseljavanja.
„Od Branka Lustiga naučila sam da sjećanje koje ne mijenja naš odnos prema živima postaje samo ritual. Zato ovo nije proslava prošlosti, nego obećanje budućnosti: da ćemo ostati hrabri, nemirni i svoji. Da ćemo manje presuđivati, više razumjeti i uvijek najprije vidjeti čovjeka“, izjavila je Nataša Popović, direktorica Festivala tolerancije.
Filmske projekcije pratit će Tolerance Talks, koje moderira voditeljica i edukatorica Izabela Laura u sklopu programa koji Festival razvija više od desetljeća. Tu je i edukacijski program za djecu, mlade i nastavnike. Cjelovit filmski program i sudionici razgovora bit će predstavljeni uskoro na web stranici festivala te na društvenim mrežama.
Zadar je za Festival posebno mjesto i zbog svoje europske baštine mira. Grad je član Europske mreže mjesta mira, a Samostan sv. Frane, mjesto potpisivanja Zadarskog mira 1358. godine, ove je godine u sklopu cjeline „Mjesta mira“ dobio Oznaku europske baštine. Posebnu poveznicu nosi i prostor II Palače: Kneževa i Providurova palača, teško stradale u granatiranju Zadra 1991., danas su obnovljeno središte kulturnog života grada i prostor djelovanja Koncertnog ureda Zadar.
Koncertni ured Zadar postaje glavni dugoročni partner Festivala tolerancije u Zadru i sudjelovat će u njegovu budućem programskom razvoju. Suradnja počinje već na otvorenju 20. izdanja, uz projekciju Očevine i koncert povezan s filmom i glazbom Johanna Sebastiana Bacha.
Dvadeseti Festival tolerancije organizira Udruga Festival suvremenog židovskog filma Zagreb, uz podršku Grada Zadra, Hrvatskog audiovizualnog centra, UNHCR-a i drugih partnera. Medijski partneri su Novi radio i 24 sata.
Partneri i podupiratelji nisu sudjelovali u odabiru filmova niti njihova podrška podrazumijeva odobravanje sadržaja ili poruka filmova.
Sve informacije o programu bit će dostupne na službenoj stranici www.festivaloftolerance.com i službenim kanalima Festivala (Facebook, Instagram).
Ulaz na sve programe je besplatan.