Biljana Čakić

Biljana Čakić-Veselič was born in Vinkovci, Croatia in 1967. She obtained her degree from the Zagreb Academy of Visual Arts. At the outbreak of Croatian war in 1991 she was a war reporter and camerawoman of Radio 101. In 1992, her first war-related documentary, Maja II, was made. In 1997-1998 she studied at the European Film College in Denmark. Upon returning to Croatia she started working for Croatian national television (HRT). Documentaries Displaced Childhood, Gunjci iz sela Sćulci and Vili(m) followed.

While helping her family in search for her brother who went missing in action in 1991, she became involved in exhumation and identification of Croatian soldiers and civilians. Her documentary cycle Killing Fields (1999/2000) was made as a result of cooperation with the Association of the Families of Missing Croatian Soldiers and POWs. A year later she completed The Boy Who Rushed, documenting her search for the missing brother. The film was shown at more than twenty international festivals. In 2001, it was Croatian candidate for Oscar for Best Documentary Film.

In 2007, she directed the documentary-feature film Zagorka, a biopic about Marija Jurić-Zagorka, a Croatian bestseller author and the first female political journalist in Southeastern Europe. In 2011 she made her first feature-length fiction film Step by Step.