Description
The Yugoslav Film Archive was founded in 1949 and two years later became a regular member of the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF).
The Film Archive started with only two hundred unsorted boxes of nitrate films, but the fund grew rapidly and already in 1964, the Yugoslav Film Archive became one of the richest film archives in the world.
The collection of the Film Archive today numbers around 100,000 copies, with 12,000 copies created from 1896 to 1953, when filming was done on flammable film tape. In the collection of Serbian films, the documentary film "The Coronation of King Peter the First Karađorđević" from 1904 and the first Serbian feature film "The Life and Deeds of the Immortal Leader Karađorđe", filmed in Belgrade in 1911, stand out for their historical and cultural significance.
The Film Archive also includes a photo library that stores a large number of photographs from domestic and foreign films and a collection of film posters. The collection of items consists of exhibits from the history and prehistory of film, such as the original camera of the Lumière brothers from 1896, the first studio film camera – the Lifka camera, the Edison phonograph and many other. In the Film Archive Library, there are tens of thousands of books, magazines, film catalogues, scripts and recording books.
The Film Archive Museum deals with film and exhibition programs, and in 2020 the permanent exhibition "Our Film Museum" was opened, which presents the most significant works and creators of Serbian and Yugoslav cinema, and includes the legacies of the following film artists: Milena Dravić and Dragan Nikolić, Pavle Vuisić, Velimir Bata Živojinović, Živojin Pavlović, Ružica Sokić, Ljubiša Samardžić, Veljko Despotović, Miomir Denić, Karl Malden and others.
During the last decade, the Film Archive has been actively involved in the restoration of our film heritage, and so far in this process it has restored close to 50 representative titles of Serbian feature films. Film Archive Day is celebrated on June 6 as the day when the first film screening was held in Belgrade and in the Balkans – in 1896 in the tavern "Golden Cross" at Terazije.
Professional collaboration: Jovan Marković, Yugoslav Film Archive
Artistic realization: Milisav Banković, Animation Director
