Tabor New Frame Film Festival 2025
Tabor New Frame Film Festival:
International Competition
Dedicated to progressive cinematic expression by filmmakers under the age of 35, the International short film festival Tabor New Frame Film will take place on July 4–5 in the unique setting of the medieval Veliki Tabor Castle, near Desinić, in the heart of the Zagorje region, Croatia. According to the selection by artistic director and programmer Dalibor Jakus, the festival will present 49 short films of all genres in three competition categories — International, Croatian, and Student — coming from 32 countries, including four world premieres, one international premiere, and 22 Croatian premieres.
International competition program of the Tabor New Frame Film Festival stands out this year for its exceptionally strong selection of films from around the world. The audience will see numerous Croatian premieres by filmmakers whose works have already been awarded and screened at prestigious festivals such as Cannes, Annecy, IDFA, Clermont-Ferrand, and Busan.
The films will be judged by an international jury consisting of award-winning Indian animator and producer Abhishek Verma, Portuguese director Mário Macedo, and Slovenian script consultant and curator Lev Slivnik.
The program brings together fiction, documentary, animated, and experimental films, with dominant themes including identity, family, ecological change, and the unease of youth.
One of the notable titles is the Portuguese-French film The Hunters (Os Caçadores) by David Pinheiro Vicente, which had its world premiere at the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival. Set in the 1970s, the film takes us to a rural villa where adolescents from a bourgeois family face collective hysteria that escalates with the arrival of an outsider.
At first viewing, a strong impression is left by Trees Painted in Tar (Træer Malet i Tjære) by Danish-French director Casper Rudolf, screened at the Locarno Film Festival and awarded Best Director at Nordisk Panorama. This harsh yet poetically crafted story follows a teenager who goes hunting with his father but unwillingly becomes part of a brutal ritual. In the oppressive atmosphere of a dense forest, under the pressure of his father’s silent aggression, he must decide whether to keep his integrity or accept violence as proof of masculinity. Through tense visual composition and emotional restraint, the film explores power relations and the dangerous silence of masculinity.
From Mexico comes the striking short film She Stays (Ella se queda) by Marinthia Gutiérrez, set during one night in the urban zone of Tijuana. The film premiered at La Semaine de la Critique in Cannes and has already received special jury mentions at festivals in Guanajuato and Guadalajara.
Special attention is drawn to the animated film It Shouldn’t Rain Tomorrow (Amanhã Não Dão Chuva) by Maria Trigo Teixeira, which speaks with visual tenderness about the fragile relationship between mother and daughter. The film has been screened at more than 50 festivals, including Annecy and Berlinale Shorts, and has won the AnimaPIX award and the Portuguese national award for Best Animated Film.
From Iran come two emotionally powerful films. Son by Saman Hosseinpour tells the story of a mother in a remote village searching for her son who did not return from the army, only to uncover a family secret. Red by Shahoo Ahmadi offers a gentle story about first emotions and the rules of youth, in harmony with nature.
From the region comes The Sea Between Us (Morje med nami) by Luna Sevnik, a co-production of Slovenia, the Czech Republic, and Croatia, portraying the subtle dynamic between a young man and an older tourist on a fishing boat. Teenage frustration and quiet rebellion unfold in the space between generations and expectations.
Themes of identity and intercultural misunderstanding appear in the American film Three by Amie Song, where a mother from China tries to protect her daughter and a family secret from new friends in the United States.
The documentary You Can’t See It From Here (No se ve desde acá) by Enrique Pedraza Botero, screened at IDFA, explores the cartography of Miami in the era of migration and neoliberal absurdities, asking what the American dream looks like from the perspective of those who have just arrived.
With ecological motifs and a narrative shift, the Portuguese film The Moving Garden (O Jardim Em Movimento) by Inês Lima follows a botanist expedition in Arrábida Natural Park, revealing changes caused not by nature but by humans.
The Nature of Dogs by Thai director Poma Bunsermvicha, after its premiere at the Busan International Film Festival, portrays a subtle family crisis during a vacation. Visually precise and dramaturgically restrained, the film uses the atmosphere of hotel isolation and a cave with Buddha statues to explore tensions that remain unspoken.
The Colombian-Cuban film A Bird Flew (Un pájaro voló) by Leinad Pájaro de la Hoz takes place in a misty space between reality and memory, where a former Cuban national team player tries to train while the presence of a lost friend becomes increasingly real. The film was screened at the Havana Film Festival and highlighted as a poetic gem of contemporary Latin American cinema.
The Czech-Slovak film The Wayfarer (Cestovatel) by Veronika Jelšíková tells the story of a retired man, Albert, who finally decides to “see the world,” only for everything to take an unexpected turn, opening themes of missed opportunities and the impossibility of escaping one’s own nature.
The experimental film Ruzname by Haydar Taştan and the animated film Ascended (Asceso) by Jacopo Iebba continue the theme of memory and repentance — one through the dark landscapes of the subconscious, the other through a metaphysical climb up a mountain.
The festival brings together an exceptionally diverse range of voices, united by a common thread: all these filmmakers explore the boundaries of reality, identity, and belonging — through family dynamics, social pressures, ecology, migration, and inner self-examination.
TNFF 2026
Submit a film
TNFF 2025
Grand Prix of the Tabor New Frame Film Festival awarded to the Portuguese-French film “The Hunters” by David Pinheiro Vicente
TNFF 2025
Final day of TNFF marked by the Melusine awards for the best films
TNFF 2025
Tabor New Frame Film Festival officially opened
PROGRAM
SCHEDULE
JURY
TEAM
TABOR
NEW FRAME FILM
After more than two decades of the cult Tabor Film Festival, a new chapter begins. Tabor New Frame Film Festival is an international celebration of short film, spotlighting bold filmmakers under the age of 35. Set in the spectacular surroundings of Veliki Tabor Castle, all film programs, workshops, and concerts are free of charge for all visitors.
PROGRAM
SCHEDULE
JURY
TEAM
TABOR
NEW FRAME FILM
After more than two decades of the cult Tabor Film Festival, a new chapter begins. Tabor New Frame Film Festival is an international celebration of short film, spotlighting bold filmmakers under the age of 35. Set in the spectacular surroundings of Veliki Tabor Castle, all film programs, workshops, and concerts are free of charge for all visitors.
2026
International Competition
2026
Croatian Competition
2026
Student Competition
Submissions for the Tabor New Frame Film Festival 2026 competition programs are now open.
MEET THE JURY
Lev Slivnik
Slovenia
Lev Slivnik is originally from Ljubljana and is currently based in Amsterdam, where he earned a Master’s degree in Preservation and Presentation of the Moving Image from the University of Amsterdam. He works in the field of film programming and curation, with a primary focus on film festivals. Lev currently serves as a Program Producer at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) and as a Pre-Selector for the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. He is also the co-organizer of Working Progress, a monthly work-in-progress screening series at Filmhuis Cavia in Amsterdam, which offers filmmakers the opportunity to receive audience feedback on their unfinished films. Previously, he was part of the pre-selection teams for Giornate degli Autori (Venice Days) and Lago Film Fest, and in 2023, he served on the Selection Panel for the LUX Audience Award.
Mário Macedo
Portugal
Mário Macedo (1989) was born and raised in a small town in the north of Portugal. His films have been selected for several festivals, such as Cannes Film Festival, Cairo IFF, Doclisboa IFF, Sarajevo Film Festival, Mostra São Paulo IFF, Clermont-Ferrand IFF and was awarded the Grand Prix and the European Film Academy Award at Curtas Vila do Conde 2024, the Best Director award at Curtas Vila do Conde 2021 and also got the National Grand Prix at FEST New Directors/New Films 2017. He published with Lebop (PT) and Editions Loco (FR), together with Olhar de Ulisses, his first photobook ‘Running Away Into You’, that premiered at Rencontre d'Arles in 2024.
Maruška Aras
Croatia
Maruška Aras is an actress born in 1996 in Zadar. She completed a five-year acting program at the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb, where she currently lives. Maruška works as an external associate – assistant in the acting course at the Academy in the class of Borna Baletić. In addition, she occasionally leads drama workshops and film workshops for children and youth. Since graduating in 2019, she has performed in productions at the Croatian National Theatre in Varaždin, Split, and Zagreb, as well as at Teatar &TD, Teatro Verrdi, Eurokaz, Žar ptica, and others. Alongside productions in which she is engaged as an actress, she also collaborates with Teatro Verrdi on her own projects, developing her authorial expression. She played the lead role in the award-winning film Nun of Your Business directed by Ivana Kragić, and has taken on other roles in collaboration with various Croatian directors such as Tomislav Šoban, Nikica Zdunić, Vanja Juranić, Mate Ugrin, and others.
Abhishek Verma
India
Abhishek Verma is an animation filmmaker, screenwriter and design educator. He has been directing and producing independent animation films since 2014: Chasni – The Sugar Syrup (2014); Lukka Chuppi – Hide and Seek (2018); Manhole (2021), Into the Manhole VR experience (2024). His film Maacher Jhol (Fish Curry) from 2017, won the prestigious Indian National Film Award and the Annecy Award at the Annecy International Film Festival. He was honoured with an award at the Académie des César in 2019. His upcoming animation films are Kitchen - The World Within (a 2D animation short film) and a 2D animation feature film, Marita-Jeevita (Purity-Impurity), based on the notion of caste in India. He is presently a faculty member at the School of Design, IIT Bombay, India.
Sabina Krešić
Croatia
Sabina Krešić is a producer with many years of experience working in the cultural sector. Since 2016, she has been professionally engaged in film production as the lead producer at Fade In, a production company based in Zagreb. Her films have been screened and awarded at numerous renowned international festivals, including Sheffield Doc/Fest, DocLisboa, Trieste Film Festival, Sarajevo Film Festival, Tallinn Black Nights, True/False, Motovun Film Festival, DokuFest, FIPADOC, Liburnia Film Festival, and ZagrebDox. One of her most acclaimed recent projects is the documentary Factory to the Workers by Srđan Kovačević, considered one of the most awarded and critically praised Croatian documentaries in recent years. While she primarily collaborates with Croatian directors, she also works internationally, having co-produced with partners in Italy, Belgium, Slovenia, Spain, Serbia, Turkey, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Her main focus is on documentary films and series, although she has also produced a fiction feature film – Full Speed Ahead (Punim plućima, dir. Radislav Jovanov Gonzo), which won two Golden Arenas at the Pula Film Festival in 2022. In 2023, she launched her own production company, Rastika, and co-founded the Mezzanine Collective, a studio dedicated to film production and image post-production.
Mladen Stanić
Croatia
Mladen Stanić is a film director and screenwriter from Split, Croatia. He graduated from the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb with a Master's degree in Film Directing. He is currently developing his debut feature-length project. His short films have won awards at domestic and international film festivals. The most famous among them are: A Small Detail (2017), White Room (2018), Ark (2024) etc.
