This year’s Star Film Fest brings 8 star awards, the Award for the best industrial film, the Award for the best feature film, the Award for the best documentary film, the Award for the best experimental film, the Award for the best animated film, and The Special Star Award – for the best student film, the Special Star Award – for the best film as chosen by the selectors and the Star Dust Award – for the best film judged by the audience. In addition, the Special Star Award for the best student film includes a cash prize awarded by a “small jury” called Stardusters, made up of high school students from the towns of Sisak and Petrinja.
All the other seven awards will be awarded by this year’s expert jury consisting of film critic and curator Dina Pokrajac, actor Marko Kasalo and one of last year’s SFF winner, young director Martina Marasović.
Dina Pokrajac is a film critic and curator. She graduated in journalism and political science at the Faculty of Political Sciences in Zagreb, and is currently a doctoral student in the postgraduate study of ethnology and cultural anthropology at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb with a topic on documentary film, archives and counter-memory. She is employed at Restart as the manager of Dokukino KIC and the Masterclass educational program. She is the artistic director of the Subversive Festival and the selector and coordinator of special and DoXXL programs of ZagrebDox. Selector, producer and collaborator on a number of interdisciplinary cultural-artistic and educational projects with an emphasis on film and critical theory (including Kino Trešnja for [BLOK], Cinematografie of resistance for MSU Zagreb, Film XX and Arteria for KIC). She edited more than 20 books in the fields of filmology, philosophy and political science. Participated in a number of international juries and selection commissions and held a series of lectures and workshops in Zagreb, Prague, Dublin, Milan, Genoa, Liverpool, Split and Madrid. She translated from English the book “Art and Technique” by Lewis Mumford and a number of essays and professional texts for various publications. Winner of the Vladimir Vuković Award for the best new female film critic in 2017. President of the Croatian Society of Film Critics and editor-in-chief of the HDFK portal Zona filma. Member of FIPRESCI and the European Film Academy.
Marko Kasalo was born on February 10th, 1990 by a set of circumstances in Livno. As a refugee from central Bosnia (Bugojno), he moved with his family to Petrinja in 1995, where he finished elementary school and general high school. In Zagreb, he completed undergraduate studies in business economics at Libertas University, and then undergraduate studies in acting at ADU. He made his film debut in Vrdoljak’s “General”, playing the role of “Damir Krstičević”, the youngest Croatian general. He had his theatrical premiere in the play DRAMA+ and HNK Zadar “The Case of Meursault” directed by Vinko Radovčić, playing 6 different characters, premiered at HNK Zadar.
Martina Marasović was born in 1993 in Zagreb, Croatia. In 2021, she graduated in film and television directing at the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb and enrolled in a master’s degree in feature film directing. Her student film “My Nikola” premiered at the Sarajevo Film Festival, and was screened at various film festivals such as the Zagreb Film Festival, GoShort in Nijmegen, FEKK in Ljubljana and won awards at the Short Film Festival Najkraći dan in Belgrade, Star Film Fest and Days of Croatian Film. Her short film about growing up “Ja ću prva” had its international premiere at the Brussels short film festival.
