Dražen Žarković

Croatia

Dražen Žarković was born in 1970 in Zagreb, where he grew up and attended primary and secondary school.

After completing his secondary education in mechanical engineering, he worked at the Zagreb Film animation studio from 1989 to 1992, initially as a tracer and later as an animator on several animated film projects. In 1992, he enrolled in film and TV directing studies at the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb, where he graduated. Since 1993, he has worked as a freelance artist, realizing a number of feature and documentary projects as a screenwriter and director.

He has directed over 200 episodes of various comedy series and sitcoms. He is a member of the Croatian Society of Film Workers and the Croatian Association of Independent Artists. He has also worked as an assistant director on feature films. Žarković has directed five feature films: Go, Yellow!, Tressette: A Story of an Island, The Mysterious Boy, Alka, and My Grandpa Fell from Mars.

As part of a group of authors, he won the Croatian national film award Oktavijan for the short animated film Wait for me (1993), the Oktavijan for the short fiction film Self-chase (1994), the Oktavijan for the medium-length fiction film New Year's Robbery (1998), and the Oktavijan for the short documentary film Counter (2001), which also won the Golden Olive at the TV festival in Bar, where he later won the Silver Olive for the feature TV film Go, Yellow! in 2002.

For the short documentary film From morning till night, he won the award for Best Editor at the Croatian Film Days in 2005. His greatest international success came with the feature film Tressette: A Story of an Island (co-directed with Pavo Marinković).