Vision
The vision of the Split Film Festival is to serve as a space where cinema becomes a transformative experience—one that has the power to disrupt the ordinary, provoke thought, and reawaken our senses. As the festival’s philosophy states:
“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.”
By supporting new modes of visual storytelling—from traditional film to the latest digital innovations—the festival aspires to be a beacon for artistic courage and creative experimentation in contemporary audiovisual art.
Mission
The Split Film Festival is dedicated to discovering and promoting bold, innovative, and boundary-pushing works in film, video, and new media. The festival welcomes creative voices from outside the mainstream—regardless of budget or format—and encourages exploration of the cinematic form as a deeply personal and expressive medium.
With a focus on independent and avant-garde productions, the festival strives to challenge convention and celebrate artistic freedom, all while fostering a dynamic dialogue between local and global film communities.
History
Founded in 1996 in the historic city of Split, the International Festival of New Film – also known as the Split Film Festival – is the oldest international film and media event in Croatia. Since its inception, the festival has championed new, experimental, radical, and subversive works across all genres and formats, placing a strong emphasis on creativity and personal vision.
Over the years, it has grown into one of the most important film festivals in the region, showcasing an exceptional selection of films from prestigious festivals like Cannes, Berlinale, and Rotterdam, as well as hidden gems from around the world—most of them Croatian premieres. The festival’s core programming features international competitions for feature and short films, while also exploring the boundaries of cinematic language through sections like New Media, Forum 3, Gender, Reflections, and Frame Extended.
Notable past events include retrospectives on auteurs such as Béla Tarr, Lars von Trier, and Orson Welles; presentations of Cinema Novo and Croatian shorts abroad; and landmark projects like the Béla Tarr masterclass, Peter Kubelka’s “Monument Film” retrospective, and the multimedia Midnight Moment in partnership with the New York Streaming Museum. The festival is also celebrated for its bold visual identity, with contributions from designers like Gorki Žuvela, Boris Ljubičić, Viktor Popović, Peter Bilak, and Duje Škaričić.