Edu4Games at 18th Zagreb Film Festival

The Industry program, platform of the 18th Zagreb Film Festival intended for film professionals, but also for all interested who want to know more about the processes of creating audiovisual works, was held online during seven festival days from 8th to 15th November and with the support of partner HUB385.

The Industry's continuous focus on the potential and possible directions of video game development culminated this year in as many as two lectures dedicated to this growing branch of audiovisual art, through the themes of loneliness in video games and the possibilities of European co-productions:

1. On Monday, November 9, Cornelia Geppert held a masterclass called Video Games: Monster Design Based on Human Emotions, in which she presented the Sea of ​​Solitude game about fighting inner monsters and overcoming loneliness. As a very personal project by Geppert and her studio Jo-Mei, the game deals with mental health issues, and Sea of ​​Solitude follows a premise that when people become too lonely, they turn into monsters.

You can watch a recording of the lecture here: https://youtu.be/bK8JNqxsUCo

2. European Commission expert on cultural and creative and cross-sectoral financing and co-founder of SpielFabrique, a French-German video game accelerator, Thierry Baujard, gave a lecture on Tuesday, 10th of November, titled Games Without Borders: European Co-Productions on the topic of increasing state aid in European countries for video game development. France and Germany have already started the process with many countries joining them. Another topic of the lecture was possible ways for Croatia to be part of the previously mentioned model as well.

After T. Baujard's lecture followed a short panel titled Croatia as a Player in European Co-Productions, in which the Academy of Dramatic Arts participated. Participants of the panel discussed the possibilities of the Croatian video game industry's participation in European co-productions. The panel was moderated by Srđan Laterza, and the participants were Thierry Baujard (SpielFabrique), Andrej Levenski (Croatian Game Development Association), Chris Marcich (Director of Croatian Audiovisual Centre) and Davor Švaić (Academy of Dramatic Art).*

You can watch a recording of the lecture and panel here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suHI9sUKvVE&feature=emb_title

* These are domestic and foreign experts, some of whom will work as consultants in the development of a new study program within the project Edu4Games – Creation of standards of professions and qualifications as well as new study programs for the area of design and development of video games, created by the Academy of Dramatic Art in collaboration with partners, constituents of the University of Zagreb - Academy of Fine Arts, Faculty of Architecture - School of Design, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, and Faculty of Organization and Informatics. The events that accompanied the video game segment were realized within the DigiTelling project, in cooperation with the French Institute in Zagreb and Goethe-Institut Kroatien.