29/08/2019 - The first edition of the Croatian gathering dedicated to investigative cinema has proven to be a triumph with the audiences on the island of Rab

Les Misérables actors Almamy Mam Kanoute and Djebril Didier Zonga and director Ladj Ly at the opening of the Rab Film Festival

The first edition of the Rab Film Festival (RAFF), which took place from 23-27 August on the Croatian island of Rab, saw Ladj Ly's Les Misérables [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ladj Ly
film profile], Ken Loach's Sorry We Missed You [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: Ken Loach
film profile] and Hans Pool's Bellingcat: Truth in a Post-Truth World [+see also:
trailer
film profile] pick up the RAFF Frame Awards.

The newly established event is dedicated to investigative cinema, and is headed up by investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker Robert Tomic Zuber. The selection featured six films in the documentary competition and five in the fiction section.

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The jury, consisting of Sarajevo Film Festival documentary programmer Rada Sesic, Croatian director Antonio Nuic and actress Tihana Lazovic, gave out the RAFF Frame Award for Best Fiction Film to Loach's film, and the Best Documentary Award to the IDFA title about the “citizen investigative journalist” collective.

Ly's Cannes Jury Prize winner, which officially opened the festival, won the Audience Award.

The Rab audiences showed a great deal of interest in the new event, filling up the local open-air Summer Cinema, which has a capacity of 450 seats, every night. The afternoons were dedicated to educational and discursive programmes under the title RAFF Generation, which included lectures by HBO's Success writer Marjan Alčevski; ZagrebDox director and documentary filmmaker Nenad Puhovski; director Dana Budisavljević, whose multiple national award winner The Diary of Diana B. [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Dana Budisavljević
film profile] enjoyed an out-of-competition screening; and cinematographer Raul Brzić.

In collaboration with HBO Adria, the festival screened the first two episodes of Chernobyl and organised a talk with Stellan Skarsgård via video link. The talk was moderated by Maša Marković, of Sarajevo Film Festival's Dealing with the Past industry section, one of the RAFF partners, who also brought along the closing film, Born in Evin [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Maryam Zaree.

RAFF is organised in collaboration with the City of Rab and Rab Open University.

Here is the full list of RAFF award winners:

RAFF Frame Award for Best Fiction Film
Sorry We Missed You [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: Ken Loach
film profile] - Ken Loach (UK/France/Belgium)

RAFF Frame Award for Best Documentary Film
Bellingcat: Truth in a Post-Truth World [+see also:
trailer
film profile] - Hans Pool (Netherlands)

Audience Award
Les Misérables [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ladj Ly
film profile] - Ladj Ly (France)