Vlada Petrić graduated from the English Language and Literature Department of the University of Belgrade in 1956. Prior to this, he worked as a teaching assistant for acting and directing at the Academy of Theater and Film in Belgrade, where he also received a degree in film and theater directing in 1958. He also served as a director at Radio Television Belgrade from its founding in 1958. After receiving a professorship in film history at the Academy of Theater and Film in 1960, Mr. Petrić spent the period 1965-1966 on a study trip in the Soviet Union at the All-Union State Institute of Cinematography, where he conducted research into Soviet cinema under the tutelage of Lev Kuleshov and Nikolai Lebedev. In 1970, Petrić went to the United States as the recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship, where he enrolled at New Your University and in 1973 became the first person to receive a doctoral degree in film studies at a US institution of higher education.
