World Comes to Zlín: Festival Attracts Record Number of Film Delegations and Premieres
30. May 2025
The 65th Zlín Film Festival is buzzing with international energy as delegations from around the globe arrive to celebrate the best in cinema for children and youth.
This year, the festival is enjoying strong interest from both Czech and international film delegations, guests, and school groups.
A total of 71 film delegations from around the world will be arriving in Zlín, including from Japan, the USA, Mexico, South Korea, Taiwan, Kenya, and many other countries. At this point, we are expecting visits from more than one hundred film industry figures,
said Artistic Director Markéta Pášmová.
The Zlín Film Festival is, above all, about offering a rich selection of films and the unique opportunity to see films for children and youth on the big screen – titles that audiences would rarely have the chance to watch anywhere else outside of festival screenings in Zlín.
For the 65th festival, we will present 19 world premieres, 13 international premieres, and a total of 121 Czech premieres,
said Artistic Director Markéta Pášmová, adding that the festival will feature 297 films from 50 countries across six competition categories and several non-competitive sections. The selection includes works from far-flung countries such as the Dominican Republic, Chile, South Africa, Cape Verde, Qatar, and Uruguay.
This year’s juries include 18 members from 13 countries, among them Will Becher, director and animator from the renowned Aardman studio (Wallace and Gromit, Shaun the Sheep, Chicken Run); Canadian screenwriter and producer Dominic James; Student Academy Award winner Daria Kashcheeva; Tonje Skar Reiersen, producer at Norway’s Oscar-winning animation studio Mikrofilm; promising young Slovak director Martin Pavol Repka; and Gianmarco Donaggio, a member of the European Film Academy and participant in Berlinale Talents 2024.