Dražen
A film by Danilo Šerbedžija
Beyond the scoreboard.
From quiet moments of discipline to family, competition and life under pressure, these scenes reveal a story interested not only in what Dražen Petrović achieved, but in the person behind those achievements.
The man behind the legend.
The story of one of European basketball’s most celebrated figures, told from a more personal point of view.
Dražen follows the life of Croatian basketball icon Dražen Petrović, from his childhood in Šibenik and rise through European basketball to his years in the United States.
Rather than simply recounting familiar victories and career milestones, the film looks inward—toward Dražen’s family, relationships, relentless drive and the extraordinary place basketball occupied in his life. His greatest passion becomes both a source of purpose and an all-consuming force, revealing the person behind the public legend.
Basketball made him famous. The film looks beyond the fame.
Producers of Dražen deliberately set out to make something more intimate than a conventional sports biography. The film follows the people, relationships and private pressures surrounding Petrović as closely as the game that defined his public life.
A life shaped by movement.
The film begins with Dražen’s childhood and development in Šibenik before following the expanding world around him—from Croatia to the highest levels of European basketball and eventually to the United States.
Production took place on authentic locations in Šibenik, Zagreb, New Jersey and New York, giving the film a physical journey that mirrors the widening scale of Petrović’s life and career.
Danilo Šerbedžija
A personal approach to a public legend.
Croatian filmmaker Danilo Šerbedžija directs Dražen with Ljubo Zdjelarević as co-director, working from a screenplay by Ivan Turković-Krnjak.
Rather than constructing the film around a catalogue of sporting achievements, the filmmakers place Petrović’s character, private life and relationship with basketball at the centre of the story.
Croatian cinema on the big screen in Calgary.
Join us at the Calgary European Film Festival for a screening of Dražen, the biographical drama that looks beyond one of basketball’s most recognizable careers to the person, relationships and determination behind it.
Sunday, November 8, 2026.
A full-length biographical drama.
Presented in Croatian with English subtitles.
Step deeper into the story.
Meet the people surrounding Dražen’s journey and discover selected members of the creative team behind the film.
The game was his passion. The life around it is the story.
Dražen turns away from the scoreboard to look at the ambition, relationships and personal intensity behind a sporting icon.
