Cres

The town of Cres, the largest settlement on the island, was a harbor where ships could escape the bad weather due to its particular secluded position in the bay.
Despite of its contemporary urban structure, Cres managed to maintain its historic centre outlined by rectangle-shaped walls bearing five towers. Nowadays, the town is marked by a small medieval port “mandrač”, Gothic and Renaissance churches and aristocratic palaces.
As well as other island locations, the town is oriented towards tourism, and it is especially interesting that Cres contains an 8-kilometer pathway sharing the name of our programme stream, Lungomare.
The town of Cres is inhabited by just under 3,000 people.

Damir Karakaš

Damir Karakaš was born in 1967 in Plašćica by Brinje in the region of Lika. He studied Agronomy, Law and Journalism in Zagreb and spent a few years as a crime-page journalist for Večernji list in Split. In 2001, he lived in Bordeaux, France, and from 2002 to 2007 in Paris, where he earns a living by playing the accordion. He studied French at the university of New Sorbonne in Paris, staged performance art and exhibited conceptual works. In his teenage years, he published caricatures and drawings in a number of ex-Yugoslavian journals, and won several caricature awards.
He published the travelogue “Bosanci su dobri ljudi” (“Bosnians Are Good People”) in 1999, the novel “Kombetari” in 2000, the collection of stories “Kino Lika” (“The Lika Cinema”) in 2001, the novel “Kako sam ušao u Europu” (“How I Entered Europe”) in 2004, the collection of stories “Eskimi” (“Eskimos”) in 2007, a novel “Sjajno mjesto za nesreću” (“A Great Place For Misfortune”) in 2009, the collection of stories “Pukovnik Beethoven” (“Colonel Beethoven”) in 2012, the novel “Blue Moon” in 2014 and the novel “Sjećanje šume” (“The Memory of the Forest”) in 2016.
The director Dalibor Matanić made a film based on “Kino Lika”, which won several domestic and international awards. The drama “Skoro nikad ne zaključavamo” (We almost never lock the door”) as part of the play “Zagrebački pentagram” (“The Zagreb Pentagram”) was staged by the director Paolo Magelli in 2009. His novel “Sjajno mjesto za nesreću” served as a basis for the play of the same name, staged by the director Dalibor Matanić at the Croatian National Theatre in Rijeka in 2010. The play “Snajper” (“The Sniper”) was staged by the director Franka Perković in 2013 at the Zagreb Youth Theatre, as well as in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, by the director Ivica Buljan in 2013.
His works have been translated into over a dozen languages. He lives in Zagreb.