Downsizing Downsizing

Alexander Payne / USA / 2017 / 135 min / English

An insightful social satire from Alexander Payne offering a humorous response to overpopulation: instead of reducing our consumption, we could simply opt to downsize ourselves... Opening film at the 2017 Venice Film Festival.

IMDb

Photos

All photos

In search of a cure for the impact of overpopulation on the environment, a group of Norwegian scientists discover how to shrink people to just under five inches tall. The invention is quickly popularised when people realise just how far their money stretches in the context of this Lilliputian world. The promise of a better life lures Paul Safranek and his wife Audrey to downsize, leaving their dull life in Omaha in favour of a luxurious miniature community. But for this couple, things do not go precisely to plan…

What's On

Palestine 36 Palestine 36

Annemarie Jacir

Tuesday, 01. 09. 2026 / 17:30 / Main Hall

Palestine in 1936. Uprisings against colonial rule are escalating. Yusuf, a peasant’s son, works for an influential family in Jerusalem, longing for a future beyond the unrest. But history is unforgiving. With an increasing number of Jewish immigrants fleeing antisemitism in Europe and the Palestinian population uniting in the largest and longest uprising against thirty years of British rule, conflict seems increasingly inevitable.

Third World Treći svijet

Arsen Oremović

Tuesday, 01. 09. 2026 / 19:00 / Small Hall

Third World is more than just a documentary about Haustor, the legendary Zagreb band that left its mark on the former Yugoslavia’s music scene. It is the story of two creative opposites: Darko Rundek and Srđan Sacher. Through candid conversations, a studio reunion, and a wealth of archival material, the film reveals how the two artists’ sensitivity to the magic of everyday life once united their creative worlds – creating a third.

Bitter Christmas Amarga Navidad

Pedro Almodóvar

Tuesday, 01. 09. 2026 / 20:00 / Main Hall

Bitter Christmas tells two alternating stories. One takes place in 2004 and stars an advertising director Elsa during a long weekend in December. The other, set in the present, features Raúl, a cult director working on a new script. Soon we discover Raúl is writing about Elsa, her boyfriend Bonifacio, and her friends Patricia and Natalia… Almodóvar’s—always stylish—latest comes straight from Cannes!