On their way to Il Cinema Ritrovato at the end of June, many archival film buffs may stop by the Yorkshire Silent Film Festival, San Francisco Silent Film Festival, or the Library of Congress‘ “Mostly Lost.” I chose a different route: it’s already the second time in 5 years that I’ve attended the Festival Nitratnog Filma at the Jugoslovenska Kinoteka. The Festival has been taking place in Belgrade for the past 20 years, always between the 6th-16th June.
Poster for the XVIII edition of the Festival Nitranog Filma
Although it is one of the oldest archival film festivals in Europe, it is one that you have probably never heard about. And it‘s no surprise: there is no Facebook event, no English-language website, and it is barely even noticeable in its host city!
However, this little gem has more to offer than one would expect. It usually runs for 10 days and hosts around 30 restored films in various formats. It buzzes with international guests from other archival institutions, who are there to introduce their own films. The festival’s 35mm projections are of good quality, and for the glory of it all, at least one film from the program is always projected from a nitrate print. It might be the only such projection in Europe this year!
Yet the Belgrade festival does not try to compete with the Nitrate Picture Show in Rochester, which focuses on film preservation through presentation and where – almost paradoxically – projecting nitrate is considered integral to keeping it alive. Rather, Belgrade is more concerned with celebrating the era of nitrate filmmaking as a pivotal period of film history and offers audiences the chance to explore and enjoy a wider range of titles filmed on nitrate.
Entrance to Kinoteka’s oldest theatre
The Festival Nitratnog Filma is only one of a few reasons to visit Jugoslovenska Kinoteka in Belgrade. Kinoteka has two cinemas, which are quite different in their programming and choice of projection formats. My favourite one is the older cinema located at Kosovska 11, right next to the national assembly. The daily screenings are mostly 35mm projections of prints from the Kinoteka’s huge collection.
Non-festival programs are generally retrospectives focused on people who have recently passed away. Such perspectives give kinoteka-goers a chance to get to know a very wide range of world cinema – and from vintage 35mm prints nonetheless! The program also includes several silent films each month, and, surprisingly for a European cinémathèque, offers quite a large selection of classic American films, including 1930s-1940s comedies, war dramas and classic westerns.
Kinoteka tickets with Captain Nitrate
But by far the coolest reason to visit Belgrade is the character pictured on Kinoteka’s entrance tickets that looks like a superhero from the Marvel universe. Well, he is a superhero alright, but of a very specific kind: Captain Nitrate is the main character of a 4-part comic book of the same name. He was a film archivist who died/transformed during a nitrate film fire and now, with his side-kick Troll Remote, fights for the cause of film preservation with (or sometimes against) FIAF (yes, you heard right!) and IFAF (International Front for Avenging Films). The whole comic book is full of film preservation information and clues, which may be challenging to anyone without experience in the field, but for us, archivists, it is a very sweet read. Furthermore, two parts of this comic have been translated to English. In fact, it is currently one of the few books in English that you can purchase at the Kinoteka’s bookstore.
The Festival Nitratnog Filma takes place in both Kinoteka’s buildings between June 6th and 16th. The archive’s two cinemas are equally active the entire year.
Aleksas Gilaitis is a freelance film archivist and curator. His expertise lies in the long-term conservation and management of nitrate film collections. In recent years he has worked at the EYE Filmmuseum in Amsterdam; the Ltd “Lithuanian Cinema” in Vilnius and the Jugoslovenska Kinoteka in Belgrade. He is also the founder and head curator of the archival film festival “First Wave” in Vilnius.
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