Tomislav Žaja
Directing
Biography
Tomislav Zaja wrote, directed and produced over fifty documentaries, few shorts and experimental films, two TV adaptations of theatre plays and three fiction films. Tomislav Zaja is a director known for The Haidari Crisis (2006), Two Sisters (2008), Solo (2008), On The Edge (2010), Demetri and Bruno (2012), New Day (2013), The Little Gypsy Witch (2014) and Free (2015).
Known For

In Yugoslavia's Livada prison in 1970, inmates led by Keber convince reluctant authorities to let them watch the televised Olympic final basketball game between the home country and the U.S., but taunting guards interrupt the viewing and prod the prisoners to the point of a riot. After a period of a kind of blissful anarchy where the inmates taste freedom, Keber enlists the house "intellectual" Mrak to devise a system of prisoner self-government aimed at forcing reforms on the state.
Headnoise

A German soldier, after avoiding death in a Partisan raid, wanders through the unforgiving mountainous terrain of an unfamiliar country, helplessly seeking salvation.
Escape to the Sea

Family music comedy with fantasy elements that portrays the life of an unusual Roma family seen through the eyes of a ten year-old Manusha.
The Little Gypsy Witch

A 10 year old girl living in Croatia, her Gypsy Grandmother dies leaving a curse on the family set by her Grandfather. A schoolboy who moves into her town befriends her and helps her to find the Grandfather to lift the curse from her family.
Magic Mirror

An observational documentary about people with mental illness who are leaving their institution after decades spent in isolation and once they get out trying to put their shattered lives back together.
Neighbors

The life story of Ivan Gudelj, one of the greatest Croatian football players of all time.
Ivan's Game

After five years, Croatian art historian and author Igor Zidić finally finished writing his monumental biography of the Croatian painter Vlaho Bukovac, but, immediatley turns his gaze onto a new potentially promising piece, a biography of yet another Croatian painter, Imanuel Vidović. However, the journey he decides to take whilst writing said book will not only be a journey through time and space, but also a personal one, as Zidić reconnects with his own childhood self and realizes why he fell in love with writing once again.
Igor Zidić: Are We Alive?

A 1981 Croatian language drama film directed by Miroslav Mikuljan, starring Bozidar Alic, Hermina Pipinic and Zvonimir Torjanac.