| FILM ARCHIVES
OF MIDDLE AND EASTERN EUROPE
Undreamed-of treasures – in regard both to domestic and foreign
film productions – are stored in the film archives of Central and
Eastern Europe. As of this year, goEast will annually present an important
archive along with some jewels from its collection. The series begins
with:
YUGOSLAV FILM ARCHIVE
Jugoslovenska kinoteka – Yugoslav Film Archive Belgrade was founded
in 1949 as the central federal film institution in Yugoslavia at that
time. In course of reorganizations it was transformed into an autonomous
and independent film institution. Later the Yugoslav Film Archive offered
its help and advice in founding film archives in some republics of the
former Yugoslavia, but nevertheless remained the most important film archive
in the former Yugoslavia. The Archive is a member of the FIAF (International
Federation of Film Archives) and has taken active part in the work of
this organization since 1951.
The Collections of the Yugoslav Film Archive
The Yugoslav Film Archive houses the most important collection of films
in South-east Europe with over 95,000 copies of domestic and foreign films,
both on nitrate and acetate tape. The Yugoslav Film Archive stores over
300,000 photographs and posters. One part of the Archive is also the Library
of the Yugoslav Film Archive which is not only unique in its country but
also the largest of its kind in the region. It holds more than 23,000
books on cinema from around the world, all national periodicals as well
as copies of film periodicals published abroad. The library also stores
the scripts of all Yugoslav feature films.
The Museum of the Yugoslav Film Archive
is a specialized cinema theater in which the (domestic and foreign) films
of the Archive’s collection are shown. The films are screened daily
with several consecutive projections; some 1000 films are shown per year.
Special programmes are assigned to various periods of film history, to
outstanding film artists, directors, actors, and to various national cinematographies.
In recent years this theatre has been one of the most frequented in Belgrade.
The Yugoslav Film Archive Belgrade received from the French government
a donation of almost 300,000 euros for the reconstruction of the archival
premises and vaults: a sum sufficient for the completion in compliance
with the highest possible standards of the new building with floor space
of 1,500 m2, as well as climatized vaults, two levels below the ground
and two levels above the ground. However, in order to make the archive’s
materials accessible to researchers and the media, we continue to require
sophisticated and expensive tools like telecine, plotters for digitalization,
editing tables, computers, software, and so forth.
www.kinoteka.org.yu
Dinko Tucakovic, Director of Museum, Email: jkmuzej@eunet.yu
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