Cross-media

Dogma 23

Name: Dogma 23
Released: 2024

2024 · B2B audience-development and smart-contract-enabled film distribution/financing service model · film gallery and audiovisual innovation project

Zagreb-based film gallery linking exhibitions, audience development, and financing workflows through public, project-led programming.

Zagrebačka galerija filma koja izlaganje, razvoj publike i financiranje spaja u javni, projektno vođeni program.

This project credentials: Script & production consulting · Smart-contract distribution

Notes from the producer

I wanted Dogma 23 to fix something that has always bothered me: a film is shown to its audience last, after every important decision about it has already been made. So we built a gallery where a film still in development could be exhibited, tested, and argued over while it still had choices in front of it - and behind that, a platform idea about putting film rights and financing onto smart contracts. The digital part came first, in 2022; the physical gallery at Ilica 49 followed.

We got it open on 26 August 2024, on a EUR 17,000 HAMAG-BICRO loan and a lot of tender paperwork, with real press and three exhibitions after it. I will not pretend the money followed. The big lines - NPOO, HAVC - went in as applications and stayed there, and by June 2025 I was asking the landlord for a rent moratorium. The concept is proven; the venue happened, the audience came. The financing to keep it standing is the part still open.

- Matija Radeljak

The story

Dogma 23 began as a question about timing: why does a film meet its audience only after the release window closes, when the decisions that shape it were made years earlier? The idea started around 2022 as a digital platform - the earliest wireframes already imagined smart contracts for film rights - and the physical component, a gallery, followed soon after. Matija Radeljak's studio Aning Film built it into a working bridge between exhibition culture and production economics, with a storefront at Ilica 49 in central Zagreb and a service logic aimed squarely at producers, distributors, and early backers. The name nods to the Dogma 95 manifesto lineage, and a manifesto wall sat at the center of the first show.

Making that real took roughly two years of unglamorous procedure. Through 2023 and early 2024 Aning Film worked repeated public lease tenders (Drzavne nekretnine, HOK), assembled compliance paperwork, and opened a sponsorship track with a Koncar application in November 2023. On 21 May 2024 the company, with co-debtors Andrea and Matija Radeljak, signed HAMAG-BICRO loan agreement No. 87/33091, a EUR 17,000 EFRR working-capital line. Modest, but secured cash while the larger funding tracks stayed in application mode.

The gallery opened at Ilica 49 on 26 August 2024. Opening photography shows more than a ribbon-cutting: audience flow through the space, discussion, and a manifesto-centered layout combining wall text, projection, and still images under the consistent D23 film-strip identity. The launch drew a genuine local press cycle across Gloria, Index, 24sata, Journal.hr, Zagreb.info, and a Jutarnji list video. The first exhibition, Ljubav i matematika, was treated as an ongoing thread rather than a one-off, continuing into the gallery's public appearance at Projekt Ilica in November 2024.

Under the exhibitions ran a more ambitious wager. Concept and specification documents position Dogma 23 not only as a screening venue but as an infrastructure experiment: B2B audience development and smart-contract-enabled financing and distribution workflows, backed by a small advisory bench spanning cinematography (Damir Kudin) and sales and distribution (Leonid Godik), with named platform and sales partners (VideoVerse, BetaFilm). The financing plan scaled accordingly, from an early 80,600 EUR frame to a 173,695.78 EUR consolidated matrix leaning on NPOO (49,325.20 EUR) and HAVC (28,665.68 EUR) lines - both filed, both still open. In March 2025 Aning Film submitted the NPOO transformation application (NPOO.C1.1.1.R6-I1.04-V2.0477).

The record is candid about the gap between ambition and secured cashflow. By June 2025 the gallery reported three realized exhibitions and a public presence at Q'ART Ilica 2024, and on 9 June 2025 Aning Film asked its landlord for a six-month rent moratorium. What Dogma 23 proves is the studio's ability to build a public-facing service from nothing - lease, brand, venue, program, and press in under two years - and to package a genuinely unusual idea about how films find money and audiences. What it had not yet proven, on the available record, was the funding to make it last.

Milestones

2022 — Earliest platform wireframes imagine smart contracts for film rights; the gallery concept follows
2023-11 — Sponsorship outreach opens with a Koncar application
2024-03-29 — Lease application and activity description filed for the Ilica 49 space (HOK)
2024-05-21 — HAMAG-BICRO EFRR working-capital loan No. 87/33091 signed (EUR 17,000)
2024-08-26 — Gallery opens at Ilica 49 with the exhibition Ljubav i matematika
2024-11 — Public appearance at Projekt Ilica / Q'ART Ilica 2024
2025-03-25 — NPOO transformation application (NPOO.C1.1.1.R6-I1.04-V2.0477) submitted
2025-06-09 — Six-month rent moratorium requested from the landlord

Outcomes

Gallery opened — Dogma 23 inaugurated at Ilica 49, Zagreb, on 26 August 2024 with documented local press.
Three exhibitions realized — From opening to 8 June 2025 the gallery held three exhibitions, beginning with Ljubav i matematika.
Public festival presence — Debuted publicly at Projekt Ilica and Q'ART Ilica 2024.
Debt financing secured — EUR 17,000 HAMAG-BICRO EFRR working-capital loan (No. 87/33091) signed 21 May 2024.
NPOO transformation application filed — NPOO.C1.1.1.R6-I1.04-V2.0477 submitted 25 March 2025; decision pending in project records.

Credits

Matija Radeljak — Curator and producer
Andrej Kozina — Gallery producer
Davor Prah — Production designer
Damir Kudin — Advisory board (cinematographer)
Leonid Godik — Advisory board (sales and distribution)
Aning Film d.o.o. — Producing company
VideoVerse — Smart-contract platform partner
BetaFilm — Sales and distribution partner