Big Golden Arena for Best Film

The Golden Arena awards were established in 1955 as the Yugoslav national film awards presented annually at the Pula Film Festival in Pula, Croatia, with the Big Golden Arena for Best Film its main prize. From 1955 to 1990 the awards were the Yugoslav cinema equivalent of the Academy Awards. In 1991 the festival was cancelled due to the breakup of Yugoslavia,^[A] but then resumed in 1992 as the Croatian film awards festival (thereby excluding films and filmmakers from present-day Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia and Macedonia). It has been held in this format every year since, although no prizes were awarded at the 1994 edition.^[B]

The festival's competition program usually includes screenings of all locally produced feature films made in the preceding 12 months (which is made possible due to the local film industry's relatively low output), so everyone involved in making them automatically qualifies for the Golden Arena awards. Therefore, there are no Academy Award-style lists of nominees announced prior to the actual awarding ceremony. The awards are given by a jury of five or six members which is named before each festival edition by the festival's managing board, and it usually consists of prominent filmmakers and film critics.

Although the festival was established in 1954, the award for best film was first awarded in 1957 - prior to the 1957 edition, the festival had separate critics' choice and audience awards for best film screened at the festival. Until 1990, the award was always given to the film's production company or companies, except in 1981 when the award was merged with the Golden Arena for Best Director and both the director and production companies of the winning film (The Fall of Italy by Lordan Zafranović) were credited with the award. Overall, Jadran Film of Zagreb and Avala Film of Belgrade were the most successful studios in the Yugoslav period (1957–1990) winning 11 and 8 awards respectively.

In the 1990s the award was intermittently merged with the Best Director award, until 1999 when the old format was briefly re-introduced. Between 2003 and 2007 film directors were credited with the Best Film award, while still being eligible for the separate Best Director award (although on four out of five occasions in this period the same director won both awards for the same film). Since 2008 the award is given to the film's producer.

List of winners

1955–1980

The following table lists all films which were winners of the top three prizes in the period from 1957 to 1980. On four occasions two films shared the same prize - in 1961 and 1965 two films shared the Big Golden Arena, in 1966 two films shared the runner-up award and in 1967 two films shared the third-place award. In addition to this, the 1965 second place prize was not awarded. Shared awards are indicated with an asterisk (*).

Award changes

• In 1954 there was no festival jury and separate Critics' Choice and Audience awards were given. The Critics' Choice Award for Best Film went to František Čap's film Vesna, and the Audience Award for Best Film went to Fedor Hanžeković's film Stojan Mutikaša. In the following years both the critics' and audiences' awards were kept in parallel with the festival jury-given Golden Arenas, so the 1954 awards are usually not considered precursors of the present-day Big Golden Arena.
• In 1955 a festival jury was introduced for the first time and it was also the first time that the award was officially called Big Golden Arena. Although it was given to the best film's director, it is de facto the first Big Golden Arena for Best Film, and it was won by František Čap for the film Trenutki odločitve.
• In 1956 the Best Film award was not given in any form.
• From 1957 to 1960 the festival jury ranked three best films of the festival, without giving them an official award.
• From 1961 to 1968 the Big Golden Arena was awarded to best film, along with the second place prize called Big Silver Arena and a third place prize called Silver Arena.
• From 1969 to 1980 the third place prize was renamed Big Bronze Arena.

Year	Award	English title(s)	Original title(s)	Director(s)
1955	01 !	Moments of Decision	Trenutki odločitve	František Čap
1956	Big Golden Arena was not awarded.
1957	01 !	Priests Ćira and Spira	Pop Ćira i pop Spira	Soja Jovanović
	02 !	Master of His Own Body	Svoga tela gospodar	Fedor Hanžeković
	03 !	Saturday Night	Subotom uveče	Vladimir Pogačić
1958	01 !	H-8	H-8	Nikola Tanhofer
	02 !	The Road a Year Long	Cesta duga godinu dana	Giuseppe De Santis
	03 !	The Sky Through the Trees	Kroz granje nebo	Stole Janković
1959	01 !	Train Without a Timetable	Vlak bez voznog reda	Veljko Bulajić
	02 !	Three Quarters of a Sun	Tri četrtine sonca	Jože Babič
	03 !	Five Minutes of Paradise	Pet minuta raja	Igor Pretnar
1960	01 !	The Ninth Circle	Deveti krug	France Štiglic
	02 !	Atomic War Bride	Rat	Veljko Bulajić
	03 !	Three Girls Named Anna	Tri Ane	Branko Bauer
1961	01 !	Ballad About a Trumpet and a Cloud *	Balada o trobenti in oblaku	France Štiglic
	01 !	The First Fires *	Uzavreli grad	Veljko Bulajić
	02 !	The Party	Veselica	Jože Babič
	03 !		Pesma	Radoš Novaković
1962	01 !	Kozara	Kozara	Veljko Bulajić
	02 !		Saša	Radenko Ostojić
	03 !		Prekobrojna	Branko Bauer
1963	01 !	Face to Face	Licem u lice	Branko Bauer
	02 !		Radopolje	Stole Janković
	03 !	Wild Growth	Samorastniki	Igor Pretnar
1964	01 !	Official Position	Službeni položaj	Fadil Hadžić
	02 !		Marš na Drinu	Žika Mitrović
	03 !	Don't Cry, Peter	Ne joči, Peter	France Štiglic
1965	01 !	Prometheus of the Island *	Prometej s otoka Viševice	Vatroslav Mimica
	01 !	Three *	Tri	Aleksandar Petrović
	02 !	Second place prize was not awarded.
	03 !		Doći i ostati	Branko Bauer
1966	01 !	Monday or Tuesday	Ponedjeljak ili utorak	Vatroslav Mimica
	02 !	The Climber*	Štićenik	Vladan Slijepčević
	02 !	Rondo *	Rondo	Zvonimir Berković
	03 !	The Dream	San	Puriša Đorđević
1967	01 !	I Even Met Happy Gypsies	Skupljači perja	Aleksandar Petrović
	02 !	The Morning	Jutro	Puriša Đorđević
	03 !	The Birch Tree *	Breza	Ante Babaja
	03 !	On Paper Planes *	Na avionima od papira	Matjaž Klopčič
1968	01 !	When I Am Pale and Dead	Kad budem mrtav i beo	Živojin Pavlović
	02 !	Noon	Podne	Puriša Đorđević
	03 !	I Have Two Mothers and Two Fathers	Imam dvije mame i dva tate	Krešimir Golik
1969	01 !	Downstream from the Sun	Nizvodno od sunca	Fedor Škubonja
	02 !	An Event	Događaj	Vatroslav Mimica
	03 !	It Rains in My Village	Biće skoro propast sveta	Aleksandar Petrović
1970	01 !	Handcuffs	Lisice	Krsto Papić
	02 !	The Cyclists	Biciklisti	Puriša Đorđević
	03 !	This Crazy World of Ours	Bube u glavi	Miloš Radivojević
1971	01 !	Red Wheat	Rdeče klasje / Crveno klasje	Živojin Pavlović
	02 !	The Pine Tree in the Mountain	U gori raste zelen bor	Antun Vrdoljak
	03 !	The Bet	Opklada	Zdravko Randić
1972	01 !	The Master and Margaret	Maestro i Margarita	Aleksandar Petrović
	02 !	Lone Wolf	Vuk samotnjak	Obrad Gluščević
	03 !	How to Die	Kako umrijeti	Miomir Stamenković
1973	01 !	The Battle of Sutjeska	Sutjeska	Stipe Delić
	02 !	The Bombardiers	Bombaši	Predrag Golubović
	03 !	To Live on Love	Živjeti od ljubavi	Krešimir Golik
1974	01 !	The Republic of Užice	Užička republika	Žika Mitrović
	02 !	The Dervish and Death	Derviš i smrt	Zdravko Velimirović
	03 !		Crveni udar	Predrag Golubović
1975	01 !	The House	Kuća	Bogdan Žižić
	02 !	Wintering in Jakobsfeld	Zimovanje u Jakobsfeldu	Branko Bauer
	03 !	Story of Good People	Povest o dobrih ljudeh	France Štiglic
1976	01 !	Idealist	Idealist	Igor Pretnar
	02 !	The Longest Journey	Najdolgiot pat	Branko Gapo
	03 !	Anno Domini 1573	Seljačka buna 1573	Vatroslav Mimica
1977	01 !	Don't Lean Out the Window	Ne naginji se van	Bogdan Žižić
	02 !	Operation Stadium	Akcija stadion	Dušan Vukotić
	03 !	Beloved Love	Ljubavni život Budimira Trajkovića	Dejan Karaklajić
1978	01 !	Occupation in 26 Pictures	Okupacija u 26 slika	Lordan Zafranović
	02 !	Bravo Maestro	Bravo maestro	Rajko Grlić
	03 !	The Dog Who Loved Trains	Pas koji je voleo vozove	Goran Paskaljević
1979	01 !	Trophy	Trofej	Karolj Viček
	02 !	Burning	Usijanje	Boro Drašković
	03 !	The Days on Earth Are Flowing	Zemaljski dani teku	Goran Paskaljević
1980	01 !	Petria's Wreath	Petrijin venac	Srđan Karanović
	02 !	The Secret of Nikola Tesla	Tajna Nikole Tesle	Krsto Papić
	03 !	Who's That Singing Over There	Ko to tamo peva	Slobodan Šijan

1981–1990

In 1981 the second and third place prizes were dropped.^[1] The following table lists all winners from 1981 to 1990. The Big Golden Arena was not awarded in 1982.^[2]

1991–present

Following the breakup of Yugoslavia which began in the early 1990s and the ensuing Croatian War of Independence, the festival was cancelled in 1991.^[3] In 1992 it was re-launched as the Pula Film Festival (as opposed to the Festival of Yugoslav Film as it was known earlier).^[4] Award categories and names were unchanged, but the selection was narrowed to Croatian films only, excluding films from the other five republics of Yugoslavia. This meant that the number of films eligible for awards fell sharply, which even led to the cancellation of the 1994 award ceremony, as only one Croatian feature film had been produced in the preceding 12 months.^[5]

Footnotes

References

General

• "Internet stranice proteklih festivala i arhivski podaci" (in Croatian). Pula Film Festival. Retrieved 18 May 2010. 

Specific

External links

• Pula Film Festival of Yugoslavian Films (1954–1990) at the Internet Movie Database
• Pula Film Festival (1992–present) at the Internet Movie Database
• Web archive 1954–2010 at the Pula Film Festival official website (Croatian)