About the Festival / Concept
Split Film Festival is an international film festival dedicated to experimental, innovative and author-driven cinematic and audiovisual practices. Founded in 1996 in the historic city of Split by Branko Karabatić as an independent initiative, the festival represents the oldest international film and media event in Croatia and has developed a distinct position within the international festival landscape by consistently operating outside dominant industrial, genre-based and market-oriented frameworks.
The vision of the Split Film Festival is to serve as a space where cinema becomes a transformative experience — one capable of disrupting everyday perception, provoking reflection and reawakening the senses. As articulated in the festival’s long-standing philosophy:
“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 forms of visual storytelling — from traditional film to the latest digital and technological innovations — the festival positions itself as a beacon of artistic courage, experimentation and creative freedom within contemporary audiovisual culture.
Cinema as Language, Process and Research
At the core of the festival’s identity is a specific way of thinking about cinema. Film is not approached merely as a finished work or product, but as a language, a process and a field of artistic research. The festival is interested in works that actively question their own form, production conditions and modes of perception — films that reflect on how images, sound, time, narration and bodies function, rather than simply confirming established cinematic models.
Experimental practice is not treated as a marginal or specialized category, but as a foundational principle of the festival. Artistic risk, formal inquiry and personal vision are central criteria of selection. Rather than catering to industry expectations or market visibility, the festival prioritizes authorial positions that consciously operate at the edges of cinema, often redefining what film can be.
History
From its earliest editions, the Split Film Festival has been dedicated to presenting new, experimental, radical and subversive works across all genres and formats, with a strong emphasis on creativity and the author’s personal vision. Over nearly three decades of continuous activity, the festival has grown into one of the most important platforms for experimental and authorial cinema in the region.
Throughout its history, the festival has presented films from major international festivals such as the Cannes Film Festival, the Berlin International Film Festival and the International Film Festival Rotterdam, alongside lesser-known but significant works from around the world — many of them presented as Croatian premieres.
The festival has built a strong international reputation through retrospectives, masterclasses, workshops and author-focused programmes, presenting and collaborating with influential filmmakers and artists such as Béla Tarr, Lars von Trier, Orson Welles, Peter Kubelka and Nam June Paik.
Beyond cinema screenings, the festival has consistently developed exhibition-based, expanded-cinema and interdisciplinary programmes, including landmark projects such as Midnight Moment, realized in collaboration with the New York Streaming Museum, positioning the festival at the intersection of film and contemporary art.
An integral part of the festival’s identity is also its strong and consistently developed visual language. Over the years, the Split Film Festival’s visual identity has been shaped by prominent designers and visual authors such as Gorki Žuvela, Boris Ljubičić, Viktor Popović, Peter Bilak and Duje Škaričić. The festival’s visual identity functions not merely as promotion, but as an extension of its curatorial and artistic position, reinforcing its commitment to experimentation, authorship and conceptual coherence.
Programme Structure
The festival’s curatorial approach is clearly articulated and visible throughout its programme. It embraces hybrid, cross-disciplinary and expanded forms, including experimental cinema, video art, new media, artificial intelligence–based practices and works situated between film, contemporary art and digital culture.
Split Film Festival is structured around both competition and curated programme sections, conceived as flexible frameworks rather than fixed categories. All submitted films are considered across the entire festival programme, with their placement shaped by artistic approach, thematic affinity and curatorial context. Programme sections remain open structures whose scope and configuration may evolve from year to year in response to the festival’s curatorial vision.
Awards
At the Split Film Festival / International Festival of New Film, international juries award prizes that reflect the festival’s long-standing commitment to authorial cinema, innovation and the exploration of cinematic language.
- Grand Prix for Feature Film
- Grand Prix for Short Film
- Grand Prix for New Media (Gallery programme)
- Honorable mentions
- “Ivan Martinac” Award
- Special Festival Award
Together, these awards articulate the festival’s ethical and curatorial position, emphasizing cinema as an evolving artistic practice grounded in risk, experimentation and strong personal vision.
A Living Laboratory of Cinema
Today, the Split Film Festival operates as a meeting point for filmmakers, artists, curators and audiences drawn to cinema as an open, experimental and continually evolving artistic practice. Situated at the intersection of cinema, contemporary art and critical thought, the festival functions as a living laboratory of film, committed to exploration, risk and the ongoing redefinition of cinematic language.
Taking place in a historic Mediterranean city shaped by layers of continuity, the festival positions contemporary experimental cinema in dialogue with a space marked by duration, memory and transformation. Rather than treating tradition as a fixed backdrop, Split Film Festival engages history as an active context, one against which new, radical and exploratory practices can emerge with greater clarity. This tension between permanence and experimentation has become a defining condition of the festival’s identity.
Alongside its artistic and curatorial focus, the festival also values exchange, encounter and shared experience. Held at the close of the summer season, within the relaxed rhythm of the city, the festival fosters an environment in which conversations extend beyond screenings, professional boundaries are softened, and informal gatherings become an integral part of the festival experience. This openness and ease are not positioned as spectacle, but as a working condition, one that encourages dialogue, curiosity and genuine connection, distinguishing the festival’s atmosphere from more rigidly structured industry events.