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.

The award is named after the Pula Arena, the 1st-century Roman amphitheatre in the coastal city of Pula, where film screenings preceding the awards ceremony traditionally take place.

In 1991 the festival was cancelled due to the breakup of Yugoslavia, but then resumed in 1992 as the Croatian film awards festival, from then on excluding films and filmmakers from present-day Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, and North Macedonia.^[A] 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, made possible due to the local film industry's relatively low but highly state subsidized output. This means that 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 handed out by a jury of five or six members which is named before each festival edition by the festival's managing board. These usually include 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.

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

Footnotes

References

General

• "Internet stranice proteklih festivala i arhivski podaci" (in Croatian). Pula Film Festival. Archived from the original on 10 July 2010. 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 (in Croatian)