Cinema in Belgrade: the back story

About Cinema in Belgrade: the back story

By the ULTIMATE Belgrade Editorial Team

Belgrade has loved the movies almost since they were invented. The city saw its first film screening only months after Paris, it is home to one of the largest film archives in Europe, and every winter its film festival fills cinemas with audiences who take their films seriously.

The first screening

On 6 June 1896, only a few months after the Lumière brothers first showed their films to a paying audience in Paris, a representative of the Lumière company held a screening at the Golden Cross, a café on Terazije in the heart of Belgrade. The audience saw moving pictures for the first time, and the city has been in love with the cinema ever since.

The Yugoslav Film Archive

In 1949 the Yugoslav Film Archive, the Kinoteka, was founded in Belgrade to collect and preserve films, and it has grown into one of the largest film archives in Europe, with tens of thousands of films. Its home at Uzun Mirkova 1 has a museum of the history of cinema, with early cameras, projectors and optical toys, and its cinema halls show classics from around the world every day, a paradise for film lovers.

Belgrade saw its first film screening only months after Paris.

FEST and the festivals

In 1971 Belgrade launched FEST, its international film festival, which brought the biggest films and stars of the day to the city, and it is still one of the highlights of the cultural year, held in late winter. Throughout the year, smaller festivals of documentary, short, European and auteur film fill the city’s cultural centres and arthouse cinemas.

Directors on the world stage

Belgrade has also given the cinema great film-makers and much-loved films. The Avala Film studios, founded in 1946, made hundreds of films, and comedies such as Who’s That Singing Over There?, from 1980, are still quoted by heart. The director Emir Kusturica won the Palme d’Or at Cannes twice, for When Father Was Away on Business in 1985 and Underground in 1995.

Going to the cinema in Belgrade

Most films are shown in their original language with Serbian subtitles, so visitors can watch the latest releases with ease; only children’s films are usually dubbed. Modern multiplexes in the shopping centres, including an IMAX screen at Galerija, show the big releases, the arthouse cinemas in the old town show classics and festival films, and in summer films are screened in the open air by the river.

Our advice: spend an evening at the Kinoteka, where the programme is a journey through the history of film, and visit its museum by day. If you are in Belgrade during FEST, book early for the most popular screenings.

Opening hours, prices and seasonal openings change, so please check with Cinema in Belgrade: the back story before you go.