Lovely Days Festival Brings Art and Film to Bol on Brač

The news in Croatian

1. održavati
   organizirati ili provoditi neku aktivnost, događaj ili skup u određenom vremenu i prostoru ↩︎
2. redatelj  (m.)
   osoba koja vodi i usmjerava snimanje filma ili postavljanje kazališne predstave ↩︎
3. suvremen
   koji pripada sadašnjem vremenu ili današnjoj epohi; moderan ↩︎
4. kolektivan
   koji se odnosi na skupinu ili zajednicu ljudi, a ne na pojedinca ↩︎
5. pamćenje  (n.)
   sposobnost ili proces pohranjivanja i prizivanja informacija u umu ↩︎
6. izložba  (f.)
   javni prikaz umjetničkih ili drugih predmeta u galeriji, muzeju ili drugom prostoru ↩︎

Translation

Text comprehension

Question 1: Where does the Lovely Days Festival take place?

Question 2: How much does it cost to attend the events at the festival?

Vocabulary

Croatian	English
održavati	to hold
redatelj  (m.)	director
suvremen	contemporary
kolektivan	collective
pamćenje  (n.)	memory
izložba  (f.)	exhibition

Read the full story

The Lovely Days festival of contemporary art and film will take place in Bol, on the island of Brač, from 11 to 13 August. The event will bring together Croatian and international artists and filmmakers, exploring themes of contemporary society, collective memory, and community. Admission to all events is free.

The festival opens on 11 August with a joint exhibition titled “Sincerely Yours” at the Bol Culture Centre, featuring works by Katarina Zdjelar, Raluca Croitoru, and Clare J Borg. According to the organisers, the exhibition examines support, vulnerability, transformation, and friendship between women as a form of resistance to an individualised society. The project was realised with support from CBK Rotterdam.

The second evening, on 12 August, features a film programme screened at the Bol Open-Air Cinema. Jasmina Cibic’s short film The Gift (2021) explores art, architecture, diplomacy, and soft power. The film won the Film London Jarman Award 2021, an award established in honour of British artist and director Derek Jarman. Cibic’s work has been shown at institutions including Tate Modern, MoMA, the Louvre, and the Venice Biennale.

Also screening is I Believe the Portrait Saved Me (2025), a ten-minute film by Kosovo-Albanian, Berlin-based artist Alban Muja. The film examines identity and collective memory and was shown at the Berlinale, where it also won an award at the International Short Film Festival in Hamburg. Muja has exhibited at Tate Modern, MAXXI, and the Stedelijk Museum.

The festival closes with the world premiere of Opera (2026) by Croatian director Igor Zelić, who has won three awards at the International Short Film Festival in Oberhausen, including the festival’s main prize. Also on the final day, artist Barbara Matijević will present the “Laboratory of Attention” at the Culture Centre — a project exploring attention as a collective practice. Her work has been presented in more than forty countries.

The closing documentary is Ivica Jakšić Čokrić’s Čiči-biči: Bolski turizam u doba korone (2021), an authentic and humorous portrait of Bol during the pandemic, documenting an unusual period for the local community.