Nenad Puhovski

Nenad Puhovski is one of the pivotal persons in the development of modern Croatian documentary film. He is the author and producer of awarded films and director of the biggest regional documentary film festival.

Nenad was born in 1949 in Zagreb, where he completed his primary and secondary education, the Faculty of Philosophy and Academy of Dramatic Arts (ADU). As a stage, film and TV director (amateur since 1965 and professional since 1973), he has directed over 250 productions. He has received a number of Croatian and international awards.

He worked as a dramaturgist of &TD Theater. As of 1980, he worked as a teacher on the Film and TV Directing Department of ADU. Today he works there as a Professor of Documentary Directing. He is the founder of the TV Program Department and graduate studies of documentary film. He taught and mentored projects of young professionals in Europe, Asia, South America, Near East, Africa and USA. In 2020, he became a professor emeritus at the University of Zagreb.

In 1997 he founded Factum, the most important Croatian independent documentary production. He has been managing it ever since. He has produced more than 70 documentary films that were shown on more than seventy festivals. In addition to numerous international awards, they won three Grand Prix Awards and four Best Production Awards at the Days of Croatian Film. In 2005, he founded ZagrebDox, the biggest international documentary film festival in the region. He has been its director ever since.

He received the City of Zagreb Award and the Order of Danica Hrvatska. He is also a winner of the Albert Kapović Award for outstanding contribution to the art of film in Croatia (awarded annualy by the Croatian Producers Association) and Gold Medal for best producer at Belgrade Documentary and Short Film Festival.

For his work on documentary film, particularly for launching and managing ZagrebDox, he received in 2009 the European Documentary Network (EDN) Award and Medal of the City of Zagreb.

He is a member of the European Film Academy.

He is married to Vesna and has two daughters – Sena and Tamara – and two grandsons - Relja and Grga. As for Tibi the dog, it is still not certain who actually owns who. Nenad describes himself as a patient choleric. His wife has characterized him the best when she called him a ‘Don Quixote in Sancho Pansa’s body’.