Marija Ratkovic

Biography

Marija Ratkovic was born in 1985 in Karlovac, Croatia. She finished her BA studies of Film and Theatre Production at the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb in 2010. In the same year she enrolled into an MA in Performing Arts and Management Studies. She is also a graduate of German and Spanish Philology and Literature at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb. Marija is the author of several documentary and commercial films on which she collaborated with prominent companies (McDonald’s Croatia, Autotransport Karlovac, etc.) and which have won several awards on both national and international level. Additionally, she has completed several educational programs in the field of film art (Cartoon Finance, Sarajevo Talent Campus, The School of Media Culture ). She has also been involved in the organization of numerous film festivals and workshops where she gained significant experience in events organization such as: Zagreb Film Festival, Zagreb Dox, Motovun Film Festival, Animafest Zagreb, World Theatre Festival Zagreb, One Take Film Festival, Human Rights Film Festival, Amateur Film Festival, etc. In association with the Kinoklub Karlovac, in 2007 she took over the organization of the Youth Film Festival and the following year the same team launched the Four River Film Festival – the first international festival dedicated exclusively to high school film. Marija is the executive producer of both festivals. From April 2008 till November 2010 she worked part time for the production company Hulahop Ltd. where she was the head of the distribution department for feature animated films. In 2010 she was the coordinator of the Croatian distribution of the Jasmila Zbanic’s film “On the Path”, which entered the Berlinale competition the same year. She also coordinated the Croatian distribution of the Danis Tanovic’s film “Cirkus Columbia”. Since November of 2007 she has worked as an outside associate for the Croatian Film Association as the line producer on its numerous short animation, fiction, documentary and experimental film projects. In July 2010 she became the Head of Production Department. As a freelance producer she is currently developing various international projects involving countries like Israel, South Africa, South Korea, Cyprus etc. Some of them are are theatre play (made at serial workshops with children) and an omnibus of seven short fiction films from all around the globe. In addition to German and Spanish, she speaks English fluently. In 2004 she passed the Certificate in Advanced English, an English language exam conducted by the University of Cambridge. She is currently taking Esperanto classes.