Vili Matula

Vilim "Vili" Matula (born 5 March 1962) is a Croatian actor, director, activist, and politician. He serves as a representative in the Croatian Parliament for green left coalition We Can!.

Matula's acting roles include S.P.U.K., Infection, 100 Minutes of Glory, Wallenberg: A Hero's Story, Schindler's List, and Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead. He works with the Kerempuh Satirical Theatre in Zagreb.

Early life Matula attended elementary and high school in Zagreb and was a member of the Zagreb Youth Theatre college. In 1978, Matula started his own theatre group, "Domaći" before enrolling in the Academy of Dramatic Art in 1980. He has also appeared in productions of Wallenberg: A Hero's Story, Schindler's List, and Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (where he played Horatio). His television work includes guest roles on Zakon!, Naša mala klinika, and Žutokljunac. Matula has also filmed and produced television specials and shorts for the Motovun Film Festival.

Matula has recorded several hundred radio dramas. His spoken word discography includes reciting works by August Šenoa, Ivan Goran Kovačić, Ante Kovačić, Vladimir Nazor, and Miroslav Krleža. He provided vocals for three songs on the Punk Cabaret album by Stanislav Kovačić. He voiced several characters on the Croatian-American animated film The Elm-Chanted Forest, Chum in the Croatian dub of Finding Nemo (2003), and Sterling in the Croation dub of Cars 3 (2017).

Politics Matula was a member of the League of Communists of Croatia, as well as delegate in the 11th and final convention of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Croatia, which resulted in the first democratic elections in 1989 of the Socialist Republic of Croatia, then part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

Matula has opposed the Right to the city movement PravoNaGRAD in Zagreb as well as neo-fascism. He's one of the founders of the Actor's Union, of which he was also a president. Matula is a member of the coordinating committee of Zagreb is OURS! (Zagreb je NAŠ!), a progressive citizen platform registered as a green-municipalist party. In the Zagreb municipal elections of 2017, Matula entered as a candidate in the borough council of Donji grad as vice president. His focus included council suppression and corrupt behavior of city authorities. In 2019 he became a founding member of the citizen platform We can! (Možemo!) that formed a green-left coalition for the 2020 parliamentary election. He was elected to the Croatian Parliament with six other members of the coalition. In 2017, Matula signed the Declaration on the Common Language of the Croats, Serbs, Bosniaks, and Montenegrins.

Selected filmography Television

Film

Awards

1988: Orestija Award for Orestija 1989: Dubravko Dujšin, Veljko Maričić, and Golden Laughter awards for the play Dekadencija 1998: Veljko Maričić, Mila Dimitrijević, Vladimir Nazor, and Croatian Theatre awards for Best Actor and Best Monodrama for "Münchhausen" 2004: Golden Arena for Best Supporting Actor 2008:Marul and Croatian Theatre awards for supporting role in Metastases 2010: Marul and Golden Laughter awards at the Kerempuh Satire Festival for Balon 2010: Orlando Award at the Dubrovnik Summer Festival for lead role in Gogol's Revizor 2019: Apollo Prize and Marul Award for Best Actor in Govori glasnije!