“Meet. Feel. Explore. Zadar” in Two Film Festival Finals

The eleventh in order Zagreb Tourfilm Festival is to take place this year in the premises of Zagreb Kaptol Boutique Cinema from October 12 -15.  The competition consists of 106 films from 29 countries of the world showing the best works from the whole world that promote destination, adventure, sport and nautical tourism ending with the Grand Prix award for best festival film. 

Awards for ART&TUR are to take place in the Portuguese city of Ourém on October 28. The first festival took place in 2008 in Barcelos, and since then ART&TUR Festival has been showing the best audiovisual productions from all over the world. Thanks to the quality and quantity of films shown every year, it is one of the most famous film reviews of this type.

The Zadar City Tourist Board studiously prepared and completed the filming of the destination film, which followed the first successful collaboration with Goić in 2014. Instead of a classical spot which most destinations prepare, Zadar decide to make a small 10-minute film, and the famous Zadar model Nevena Dujmović Prižmić and actor Dejan Marcikić excelled in the title roles.

The story of the film follows the main characters Jack and Jill, who pass through Zadar in a rapid change of shots like famous characters from famous movie blockbuster adventures. On one side, the film has a plot and on the other it clearly shows the abundance of natural and cultural treasures, which is primary and the aim of such works. All this is “seasoned” with the appearance of autochthonous inhabitants in the film and the original music signed by Toma Cukrov.

The premiere showing of the film “Meet. Feel. Explore. Zadar“ took place on May 5th in the multipurpose hall of Providur Palace, and until presently it has been viewed by over one hundred thousand viewers via YouTube and Facebook channels of the Zadar City Tourist Office, as well as other different marketing platforms.

The author of the film Igor Goić does not hide his satisfaction with what happened four months later – In cooperation with the Zadar City Tourist Office, we did not want to create a classical postcard but a story in which Zadar would be an attractive film set. There were a lot of positive criticisms, and also constructive ones that I will take into account in the next film we will be making for the Tourist Office, so we will try to include even more locations and tourist offers, says Goić. In the technical sense, apart from the communication of the topic itself, the advantage of this film is that it is extremely modular and works excellently in all formats and lengths that modern online marketing channels require, from 15 seconds to over one minute and two and a half minutes in length up to an integral film lasting 10 minutes. These characteristics are also included in the criteria important in specialized festivals of promotional tourist films.  

In the continuation of the first film, which mostly takes place in Jack's dream, the action will mostly take place in reality, where Marcikić will get lost in the city and Nevena will go searching for him. That is the framework of the plot that will surely offer tourists a new view of Zadar.

The satisfaction of having entered into the finals of two festivals is not hidden by the Zadar City Tourist Office, Mario Paleka:

- In different ways, our office opens up space for young and creative authors and companies from Zadar, which in an original and different way represent what our city actually is and all the possibilities it has to offer. We are extremely satisfied with the viewership of Goić's film in the emitting tourist markets that are important to us. If we were to win one of the prizes at these two festivals, it would formally confirm the quality of local creatives and our vision, and, at the same time, contribute to the greater promotional visibility of our city on the extremely competitive European and world tourism market.

Whether the film will be crowned with a festival award at the end will be known on October 14 at the Regent Esplanade Hotel in Zagreb, on October 28 in Ourém in Portugal respectively.