The Belgrade cinema, which is part of the Yugoslav Film Archives, remains one of the few places in Serbia's capital that screens classic films from the archives' massive collection of domestic and foreign titles that has been accumulating since 1949

There used to be lines out the door. A Friday or Saturday night once meant a packed theatre. Now the cinema, part of the Yugoslav Film Archives, seems more like a hidden treasure than a popular venue.

But with a rich history and a vast assortment of movies collected from across the world, it continues to showcase films nightly.

The outside door to the cinema plays movie clips on a small digital screen, complete with sound. The right clip seems to catch the attention of people passing by who will stand in the cold for a minute or two watching it.

The woman at the ticket booth does not speak English, but sells admission with a smile. She also hands out programs that contain a list of show times and titles for the month. The room before the theatre, displays old movie posters and sometimes a few artifacts from the archives. The items exhibited are changed regularly.

Just before the show starts, the double-door entrance to the theatre opens. Movie-goers take their places among the rows of red, velvet backed seats. Some of the chairs squeak when they are pulled down or lifted up. But there is more than enough legroom between the rows. It is a comfortable spot to take in an old classic, or a French film or maybe, just maybe, a contemporary movie that is best served on the big screen.

There are not many places where the classics still play on the big screen the way they were intended to be shown or where parents can take their children to see childhood favourites like The Wizard of Oz.

Tickets cost just 100 dinars [around 1 euro], and the movie selection includes both foreign and domestic films. Some of films are classics like Casablanca or 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Others are more contemporary such as V for Vendetta, 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later. Often the films shown are linked together, making a double feature - a great way to spend a cold afternoon.

All of the movies shown are part of a Serbia-based collection of more than 95,000 titles that has been accumulating since 1949.

Aleksandar Erdeljanovic, head of the archive, said the plan is to someday house a museum, library and cinema in a single location. Plans are in the works, but realistically it is at least a year or two away, he said.
The entire film collection in housed outside the centre at Kneza Viseslava 88, an address that was once known as “Cinema City.” From the 1960s to the 1980s, films were shot here and production crews bustled around the site. Now, it is little more than a maze of dirt roads and old structures with just one building in the back still used for anything related to the industry.

Although the archive is not open to the public, it attracts and welcomes scholars and researchers. Here is where the movies are stored, catalogued and repaired. It also houses a collection of movie paraphernalia and props such as an original cane used by Charlie Chaplin. There are about 800 old cameras and equipment, some of which dates back 100 years. The plan is to have these artifacts displayed eventually, said Erdeljanovic.

But mostly what goes on at the archive is the behind-the-scenes work to make old films ready to reappear on the silver screen.

“The big screen is something special,” Erdeljanovic said. “It is a different kind of emotion when you watch films this way.”

Although the collection continues to grow, he thinks the quality of the collection is far more impressive than the quantity. The archive houses rare and unique films with 85 percent of the films from overseas.

In recent years, the archive started digitally restoring films, but it is a slow process. “To restore 10 to 15 minutes of film can take two or three months,” he said.

“Digital restoration is a very hard job and a very long job,” said Erdeljanovic. “At the beginning you have a bad or damaged copy of an old film. In the end, you have a new negative. It is sent to a lab, and you get a new copy.”

The archive has seen the process through from start to finish just once so far, with a Serbian film from 1928, but it continues to work on others, he said.

Serbia’s unique past has helped it build its film collection. Having once been considered somewhere between the politics of the east and the west made it an attractive place for many countries to donate films.

“They gave us films from both sides,” Erdeljanovic said. “We are a very respected archive in the world.” Also, he said, local laws required domestic film makers to hand over negatives and a copy to the archive.

However, recent history put these films in danger. The previous archive building was hit during the 1999 NATO bombings. Miodrag Cakic, who runs the cataloging operation, said it is amazing that the films were able to survive since it rained and the building flooded following the bombing.

“Essentially they were bombing their own country’s heritage,” he said.

Without the film archives, some movies would have been lost forever but finding lost films and storing them is only part of it. Often old, damaged copies, which could be the last copies remaining, are not easy to identify. It takes a keen eye and a lot of research to figure out what some of the films are.

“We have a lot of unidentified films, a few hundred,” Erdeljanovic said. “I am the expert for that. In the past year, I found seven lost Hungarian films.”

Erdeljanovic can’t tell you how many movies he has watched, but will say films have been his life-long passion.

However, he fell into the business by chance. In 1995, he entered and won a T.V. quiz show. The topic was 100 years of film. The prize was a new car, but he was awarded more than just that.

“It was a special situation,” he said. “I was very good at the quiz, and the director (of the Yugoslav Film Archives) said maybe you want to work here. It was a fantastic surprise and my great wish.”

“Film is an art form which has roots. Without understanding its roots, you can’t understand contemporary film,” said Erdeljanovic.

The cinema is located at Kosovska 11 near Parliament and Trg Republike.

This article is courtesy of Balkan Insight, the online publication of the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, which contains analytical reports, in-depth analyses and investigations and news items from throughout the region covering major challenges of the political, social and economic transition in the Balkans.

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