I am not going to Croatia !

While the global sports community is preoccupied with the FIFA World Cup 2026, with a focus on sports, countries and the emotions that such events bring, Croatia has seized the opportunity to promote a new tourism video.

The Ministry of Tourism and Sports and the Croatian National Tourist Board, in cooperation with the Croatian Football Association, organized the promotional event “CROATIA IN THE GAME – Tourism. Sport. Culture. Flavors.” which took place last night at the AKA Hotel in Alexandria, where the Croatian national football team camp is located. The event premiered the new promotional film for Croatian tourism “CROATIA – I hear it’s beautiful”.

At the center of the campaign is John Malkovich, one of the most recognizable American actors in contemporary cinema, but also a man whose family story is connected to Croatia.

Audiences remember him from a number of notable titles, including Dangerous Liaisons, In the Line of Fire, Empire of the Sun, Con Air, Being John Malkovich and Red, in which he built a reputation as an actor with strong charisma and a very specific screen presence.

Malkovich was born in 1953 in the city of Christopher in the state of Illinois in the USA. His father’s family originates from the Ozalj area near Karlovac. Namely, his grandparents emigrated from that area to the United States, as part of a wider wave of emigration from Croatia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when many families left due to difficult economic conditions and the search for work in mines and industry in the USA.

On his mother’s side, Malkovich is of Scottish-German descent, so the actor himself often emphasizes his mixed European heritage, while speaking of the Croatian part of his family as an important, but insufficiently defined part of his own roots. He has repeatedly mentioned that he heard Croatian as a child from his grandparents, although he never learned it. And recently he officially received Croatian citizenship.

In the new CNTB video, Malkovich appears as a central figure who, through humor and light self-irony, “enters” the Croatian mentality and the concept of relaxation, while the campaign presents Croatia itself as a destination that is not sold only through locations, but through a way of life.

Interestingly, the entire campaign fits into the broader framework of the “Croatian Hollywood” concept – the idea that Croatia is no longer just a location for foreign films and series, but also a space that actively uses film language and global stars for its own narrative.

Malkovich has a specific role here: he is not only a well-known name, but also a person who already has a real connection to Croatia, which gives the whole story additional weight compared to classic tourism campaigns.

At the strategic level, the connection with global sporting events such as the World Cup further enhances the reach of the campaign. At that moment, the global audience looks towards countries, atmosphere and identities anyway, so tourism marketing naturally “sticks” to the sports spectacle.

The result is a campaign that balances between a promotional video and a film narrative, with Malkovich as a bridge between Hollywood and Croatia, and with the clear aim of presenting the country as a story, not just a destination.