March 11 2025

Today, on 11 March, we commemorate the 97th anniversary of the birth of our patron and inspiration Professor Vladimir “Vlada” Petrić. Born on this day in 1928 in Prnjavor, Kingdom of Yugoslavia, he was fascinated by the phenomenon of film from an early age. After graduating from the national film school in Belgrade, he was appointed to the position of associate professor of film history at the Academy of Theater, Film, Radio and Television in Belgrade in 1959. The receipt of a Fulbright Scholarship opened up a pathway for him to continue his academic pursuits in the United States.

In 1973, he defended his doctoral dissertation on Soviet revolutionary film in the United States, obtaining the first ever doctoral degree awarded in the field of film theory in the US. On the occasion of his 97th birthday, we are proud to announce that this historic dissertation will soon become available to the public as part of our initiative to publish the complete works of Vlada Petrić. Additional information is forthcoming.

February 17 2025

We are excited to announce that works by the acclaimed filmmaker Želimir Žilnik have become part of our distribution roster. Known for his socially engaged cinema, Žilnik’s films offer compelling insights into contemporary social realities.

A master of blending documentary and fiction, Žilnik often features non-professional actors in his cinematic creations, giving voice to lived experiences. The films by Žilnik which we have on offer for distribution were specially commissioned by renowned art institutions, two of which – Kunsthalle Wien and Centre Pompidou – have hosted career retrospectives dedicated to the artist.

Adding to his impressive body of work, Žilnik’s newest film was premiered at the prestigious Berlinale Film Festival on 14 February. This most recent exploration of contemporary social issues promises to continue his legacy of impactful and thought-provoking cinema.

For more about the artist’s works in our program, check out our distribution page. If you want to bring Žilnik’s unique cinematic vision to your audience, you can contact us here for distribution inquiries → [email protected]

February 7 2025

We are thrilled to welcome Igor Bošnjak to our distribution program. His moving image art offers a powerful perspective on the Balkans, cutting through distorted narratives surrounding history, migration, surveillance, and the relationship between image and time.

From 2006 to 2016, Bošnjak founded and curated the namaTRE.ba biennial project. Since 2009, he has lived and worked in Trebinje, where he is a professor and lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts. His work has been exhibited at numerous venues both in the Balkans and internationally, including the Whitechapel Gallery (London), Kunsthalle Wien, the Museum of Contemporary Art Vojvodina (Novi Sad), and the Museum of Contemporary Art RS (Banja Luka), among others.

To learn more about the artist’s video works available through our distribution program, please visit our distribution page. For inquiries about his work, please contact us at → [email protected].

December 13 2024

Kinopravda Institute is proud to announce that it is a program partner at this year’s virtual edition of Media City Film Festival.

Media City Film Festival (MCFF), established in 1994, is a globally influential organization dedicated to the advancement of artists’ cinema, moving image culture, and contemporary art from Canada and around the world, with important commitments to BIPOC and marginalized creators. Recognized as an award-winning international leader in the creation, reception, exhibition, and dissemination of film and digital art, MCFF seeks to advance artists whose practices are experimental in form, genre, content, and aesthetics.

The 27th edition of Media City Film Festival presents more than 70 films and digital artworks with nearly 50 world premieres over the course of its online celebration: December 9–30, 2024.

Audiences will experience new films, digital restorations, and historical masterpieces from legendary, award-winning, and emerging artists including Artavazd Péléchian, Ja’Tovia Gary, Mona Hatoum, Kamal Aljafari, Richard Serra, Jocelyne Saab, Madeleine Hunt–Ehrlich, Toshio Matsumoto, Sharon Lockhart, Mustafa Abu Ali, Skip Norman, Rose Lowder, Akram Zaatari, Sky Hopinka, Harun Farocki, Little Egypt Collective, Kevin Jerome Everson, Suneil Sanzgiri, and dozens more.
All screenings and events are free in global open access at → www.mediacityfilmfestival.com

December 2 2024

Kinopravda Institute and the Faculty of Media and Communications Belgrade are organizing an open lecture by Professor Kevin B. Lee, a pioneering video essayist. The lecture will be held on Friday, December 6, starting at 3 p.m., in room 501 at FMK. 

About the lecturer: 

Kevin B. Lee is a filmmaker and media researcher who has produced nearly 400 video essays exploring film and media. His award-winning Transformers: The Premake introduced the “desktop documentary” format. His work has been screened at the Museum of Modern Art, Berlinale, and International Film Festival Rotterdam, as well as on websites such as The New York Times and MUBI. He is the Locarno Film Festival Professor for the Future of Cinema and the Audiovisual Arts at Università della Svizzera italiana (USI). He is a leader of the Swiss National Science Foundation research project “The Video Essay: Memories, Ecologies, Bodies.”

November 26 2024

As one of the programs being presented at the 30th Film d’Auteur Festival in Belgrade, the Alternative Film/Video team will be screening the long-awaited documentary film about the achievements in experimental cinema accomplished in Slovenia during the era of Communist Yugoslavia (1945-1991).

This rich cinematic heritage, which has for decades been neglected on both the domestic and international scenes, serves as the centerpiece of this documentary exploration, highlighting the significance of Slovenia’s contributions to the experimental genre. During the decade spanning from 2013 to 2023, the Slovenian Film Archive was involved in the preservation and digitalization of the over 179 short films produced during this period, most of them outside of the purview of the state’s control.

Thanks to the efforts of the Slovenian Film Archive in the preservation of these experimental shorts, the significance of their innovation within the frame of the Slovenian film heritage is finally receiving its due recognition. Visitors to the screening will have the opportunity to hear the experience of the various pioneers whose works shaped this cinematic landscape. The screening will be followed by a special Q&A session with directors Matevž Jerman and Jurij Meden.

The screening of Alpe-Adria Underground is scheduled for November 28th 2024 at 7 p.m. at the building of the Yugoslav Film Archive located in Uzun Mirkova Street No. 1. Due to the limited number of seats available, we advise visitors to come earlier to the event. For more info, check here.

October 29 2024

We are thrilled to announce an upcoming screening of Light-Play: A Tribute to Moholy-Nagy, an exceptional, one of a kind experimental video essay by the esteemed film theorist and director Vlada Petrić at Harvard Film Archive, on November 22nd at 7 p.m. 

This special screening is part of the Archive’s series The Yugoslav Junction: Film and Internationalism in the SFRY, 1957–1988, which explores the vibrant intersection of Yugoslav cinema.

“Light Play: A Tribute to Moholy-Nagy” represents a video essay through which Vlada Petrić pays homage to the legendary avant-garde artist László Moholy-Nagy, a Bauhaus pioneer known for his exploration of light, motion, and kinetic sculpture. Drawing inspiration from Moholy-Nagy’s 1930 kinetic piece Light Modulator, featured in the experimental film Ein Lichtspiel: Schwarz, Weiss, Grau, Petrić reinterprets every frame of the original film, incorporating Dziga Vertov’s theories of interval and montage. Through this approach, he carefully deconstructs then reconstructs the sequences creating a fresh narrative rhythm and adding experimental depth.

Petrić’s film explores the profound question: What happens when light and motion become the storytellers? The result is a complex dialogue between 20th-century experimental art and contemporary visual theory, conveyed solely through visual language. By using the simplicity of light, motion, and geometric abstraction, he creates a rhythm that is both cohesive and abstract, engaging the viewer in a unique narrative form.

After being completed in 1988, Light Play stands as a rarely seen gem in the world of experimental cinema. Thanks to the Kinopravda Institute, this masterpiece will be showcased in an exclusive screening and is now available for rental as a digital file—bringing broader access to a work that has long remained hidden from view. More information about this screening at Harvard Film Archive can be found →  here

October 20 2024

Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), the legacy New York nonprofit arts organization which has been supporting video and media art since its establishment in 1971, has organized a conference + series of public programs to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the groundbreaking conference Open Circuits: An International Conference on the Future of Television.

Distributors, researchers, curators, writers and others explored topics such as the relationship between video and television technologies and democracy in the United States; randomness, noise and error in media practice; and the preservation, distribution, and accessibility of video art. Greg de Cuir, Artistic Director of Kinopravda Institute, participated in Open Circuits Revisited as part of the Institute’s initiative to expand cooperation and research with like-minded institutions. More information about Open Circuits Revisited can be found → here

August 13 2024

As our societies become more dependent on and integrated with technology, it is important to remember the importance that forests have for the future. This is what Dušica Dražić, artist and independent curator, had in mind when she decided to initiate a twofold project: the reforestation of the karst region of the Pešter Plateau and the shooting of a docu-film which would record this endeavor for posterity.

In the period between 1973 and 1988, a series of Youth Work Actions held during the summer gathered together thousands of youth from all over Yugoslavia to volunteer in the reforestation of the region. The artist’s father, Milutin Dražić, a forest engineer, led the project and oversaw its realization. Through this undertaking, the author intends to replicate her father’s achievement, but also to uncover the deeper significance of the forest as an entity that acquires the nature of a transnational, political, social and cultural collective. This initiative lasts from August 18 to August 25. Follow the volunteers and Dušica on their adventure here -> https://www.dusicadrazic.com/it-rains-differently/

31 July 2024

The artist duo Doplgenger are participating in two exhibitions that are continents apart yet tied together thematically by their desire to address the influence that political and economic forces have on the well-being of the social body. In the exhibition at the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Belgrade, which is dedicated to the life and works of the Serbian artist Djordje Andrejević-Kun, Doplgenger has pieced together archival footage that documents his life and artistic career, conveying the audiovisual sensations that were formative in creating Kun’s aesthetic outlook. The exhibition is on view through September 8, 2024.

The other exhibition, titled “Power Plays”, revolves around the sports film genre, focusing more specifically on the forces which serve as the driving engine for the global sports media complex. The Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh has assembled seven artists who each provide a glimpse into this fascinating world through their own unique approach. Doplgenger is showing Fragments Untitled #6, a short which dissects the politics and media perception of a football match that was to be played in Zagreb in 1990.

Visit our distribution page for more information on Doplgenger and available works by the artist duo for screen programs and gallery exhibitions.

3 July 2024

Kinopravda Institute will present a selection of works by artists in its distribution program as part of the ongoing screen series Kratki utorak (Short Tuesdays) in Zagreb. The screening will take place at Dokukino KIC on July 23, 2024. After the screening there will be a panel discussion on the issues and challenges which arise in the production, distribution and exhibition of film art and video art. Further program details will be announced soon.

With its distribution program, Kinopravda Institute seeks to amplify the work of film artists and video artists in Southeast Europe. The program specializes in experimental and alternative forms of moving image art. Information on the artists and their works in distribution can be found here.

12 June 2024

We are excited to announce that the visual artist and filmmaker Armando Lulaj is now part of the distribution program at Kinopravda Institute. Lulaj has maintained a politically provocative and formally adventurous moving image practice since 1999. His work is oriented towards the border between economic power, fictional democracy and social disparity in a global context.

Lulaj co-founded the DebatikCenter of Contemporary Art in 2003 in Tirana, which is a space that offers the necessary tools to imagine alternative futures and strategies of resistance to the status quo. His works have been shown at the Prague Biennial (2003, 2007), the 6th Berlin Biennial (2010), the 52nd Venice Biennial (2007), the 63rd Berlin International Film Festival (2013), the National Theater in Tirana (2013), and he represented Albania at the 56th Venice Biennial (2015). For information on the video works by Lulaj that we are representing please check our distribution page, and for any inquiries please contact us at → [email protected]

8 May 2024

Beldocs International Documentary Film Festival in Belgrade will host the premiere screening of Vlada Petrić’s posthumous video essay, Emily Dickinson: Three B’s, on 24 May 2024. Petrić was fascinated by the life and poetic imagination of Emily Dickinson, especially with regards to her relationship towards religion. During the last decade of his life, he and his wife Dara Čalenić collaborated on this personal pilgrimage through Dickinson’s writings.

Petrić finished the final edit of this video essay just a few months before his death in November 2019. Kinopravda Institute has worked with particular dedication in the years following to add the final touches in post-production, completing this process in 2023. We are excited to present to the world this final work by the man whose personality and career has been an inspiration to us and whose studies in cinematography serve as a beacon for our team. Kinopravda Institute is distributing Emily Dickinson: Three B’s, along with earlier works of film and video by Vlada Petric. View the distribution catalog at the site link here.

29/03/2024

The international competition at Alternative Film Video features recent moving image works that challenge the status quo of aesthetics and politics in contemporary film and video practices.

AFV assembles a jury every year with the task of nominating works in the international competition to the festival’s List of Outstanding Achievements. All artists placed on this list are eligible for a residency at Academic Film Center in Belgrade (Serbia) and production support for a new work (pending available resources). The jury also selects a recipient of the Sonja Savic Award, given to an outstanding female-identifying artist in the international competition. This award is presented in partnership with Gallery Nadezda Petrovic (Cacak, Serbia) and includes a residency and a solo exhibition at the Gallery.

Submissions to the international competition are free of charge. Alternative Film Video will be presented at Students City Cultural Center in Belgrade from 4-7 December 2024. Enter your work at this link –> https://tally.so/r/woMqde. For updates follow the AFV channel here –> https://t.me/alternativefilmvideo.

20/03/2024

Vladislav Knežević, artist and filmmaker, is holding an intermedia performance at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb. The performance is a reinterpretation of Stéphane Mallarmé’s cult poem “A Throw of the Dice will Never Abolish Chance”, his final major work, which he wrote in 1897.

The artist has engaged the text of this poem through his own cinematic lens, drawing on various associations that elude description. His performance is accompanied by the unique sonic landscapes of Alen and Nenad Sinkauz, with the first-time cooperation of French vocalist, Isabelle Duthoit. The performance will be staged in the Gorgona Hall of the Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb on March 28 2024 at 8:00 p.m. More information about the event can be accessed here → http://www.msu.hr/dogadanja/refrakcije-refractions-intermedijski-slucaj/1417.html

13/12/2023

The new issue of Tragovi, a journal that explores themes related to Serbian and Croatian culture and society, has just been published in open access. The issue contains a book review, written by Petra Belc Krnjaic, of the first three editions in The Complete Works of Vlada Petric. The reviewer explores the life and work of Petric while situating the books in the larger context of film historiography.

Tragovi, Vol. 6, No. 2 can be accessed here → https://hrcak.srce.hr/broj/24044. Direct access to the book review can be found here → https://hrcak.srce.hr/clanak/449180. Further editions in The Complete Works of Vlada Petric are forthcoming in 2024-25. The book series is published by Kinopravda Institute, co-published by the Yugoslav Film Archive, in partnership with Film Center Serbia (Belgrade).