BRIEF HISTORY AND PRESENTATION
Film Culture Development Association
The Film Culture Development Association, established in 2004, consists of four members (Lidija Gornik, Zlatko Kovačič, Robi Petrovič and Boštjan Lah) who have all been involved since the very beginning. We come mainly out of the humanistic branch and are joined by our interest in film culture as well as the belief that Maribor and its vicinity needs a better film program - one that would not create only transient and surface views, or turn them away from film, but one that would offer the viewers a chance to indulge in a quality cinematographic experience.
The possibility that the local cinematographers might close their doors, with their already poor program scheme, led us to form our association.
In the season 2004/2005 our primary goal was to assure at least a minimal amount of accessible film culture. Through our cooperation with the students organization ŠTUK, we organized a project called »Cinema Štuk – Different Cinema« at their location.
Our wish was to supplement the regular film distribution and performance that goes on within these multiplexes, with our own weekly film projections. With monthly lectures of carefully chosen films under the name »Filmosophical night«, our wish to advance the program succeeded.
Usually at these events, with lecturers from a variety of fields, the attendance was higher.
The audience often developed a lively debate, and sometimes the number of visitors reached up to 100. The fact that they were not coming only from our local area, proved that interest in these events is wide spread.
We started to edit the radio broadcast on radio MARŠ about the film culture under the title »Filmsko vrtoglavo« almost at the same time as we started to dorm our association in the autumn of 2004.
The broadcast reached its target group of listeners, established a good reputation and with February 2006 it is becoming a regular weekly transmission.
With the new season 2005/2006 we moved our activity to Narodni dom, where better spaces and working conditions as well as the nature of the place itself (various music and cultural events take place in Narodni dom, such as jazz concerts, theater, library, multimedia center…) provide us with better chances to collide with the general production activity and other presentations of cultural content.
2. OUR ACTIVITIES
The Program within Narodni dom
It is a given fact, that Maribor experienced quite a surprise as we entered the new millennium. In the first half of 2005 all the urban movie cinemas were finally shutdown. It is our appreciated opinion that it is absolutely unacceptable for Slovenian second largest city and university center of the NE region to experience the total withdrawal of the cultural movie content, which should be at least leveled with other content and pose a challenge for everybody, who cares. And so we continue our initial project »Cinema ŠTUK – Different Cinema« in Narodni dom, where we are provided with better working and organization conditions. Cinema club Narodni dom is essentially what we in Slovenia call Art Cinema, or what is in general called art feature film: a representative view over geographically, genre and style in determined film history and modern art film production.
The idea, besides organizing cinema events within Narodni dom, is to present cinematography in its widest sense, no matter the culture or the time frame it is placed in.
Basically our wish is to present a part of the production that is not entirely dependant on economic interests and offer the public a chance of an alternative choice.
The radio broadcast “Filmsko Vrtoglavo”
In our unique style we tend to draw our listeners closer to the film stories; we educate them in special parts of the film theory; we play film music and report about every important movie event in Maribor and further out. United with the remaining activities of the “Film Culture Development Association” (Društvo za razvoj in ohranjanje filmske culture), the radiobroadcast “Filmsko vrtoglavo” represents one of the main foundations, on which we wish to build our listener, who would know how to be critical to media culture and will be able to comprehend the quality in the overflow of modern image.
The broadcast, which with February 2006 gains the regular weekly term on radio MARŠ (www.radiomars.si), covers the whole spectrum of contents connected with cinematography. This way we don’t only devote time to film music and current film events, but we also give room to film history, film review, we cover the festivals around Slovenia, try to expose rear cinematographic events and search for new domestic film enthusiasts.
Production
Within the association and through collaboration of individuals or under the cover of other societies we also participate in production of different documentaries with engaging or informational contents. In year 2004, under the supervision of “Zofijinih ljubimcev” (www.zofijini.net) – association for humanist development, one of our members planned and filmed a documentary “Tiha smrt”, which informed our nation about the history and the current situation of dealing with thermal waste in Slovenia. He continues his production with a series of didactic-educational documentaries about the giant-like figures in the history of philosophy (Descartes, Plato…).
This year is our association preparing a documentary on the theme of Maribor cinematography throughout the history.
Webpage
We have our own webpage www.filmsko.net, where we give you up to date information about different events and unite all the aspects about running our association from our own production, regular program and everything to common evaluation of cinematographic events around the world.
Promotion
With events of all kind, we have an incessantly renovated and supplementing mailing and member list, through which we supply our audience with a home-sent advertisement (and it already counts up to more than 200 addresses), and at the same time make flyers – with their own distribution around Maribor, these flyers help us to attract attention of the population outside of our acquainted circle.
Our main efforts are currently directed to better promotion in hope, that our frequent activity will meet a wide response and that we will be able to collect enough resources to finance most of our events; at present we are not collecting any entrance fee and we have to cover all the expenses from our own pockets.
The Film Culture Development Association is currently the only regular offerer of this kind in broad area – in the area of Maribor there is no other comparable bidder, who could offer film projections, lectures, own production, radiobroadcast, as well as festivals and other events, that are connected to film activities.
3. VISIONS AND EXPECTED PROJECTS
The purpose of this association has always been the development and expansion of film culture on the range of our activities through work on the level of presetting film art, film theory and practice as well as acquiring movie infrastructures, binding people with interests for movies and warning the public through media about the cleft stick of film culture.
We were mostly thinking about movie lectures, round tables and discussions that are essential for a deeper insight and better understanding of the seventh art as well as an additional warning to the insufficient, market oriented and unrepresentative showing of movies.
This last argument would not be of much value, if the RS educational system would continually provide a regular primary or high school pupil with a deeper understanding of film language. But on the contrary – the movie is taken out of the educational plans and can not be found even in the self-selected subjects.
Therefore we would like to lay great stress on the pedagogical dimension and education of youth, because in doing so we are creating a potential possibility for the future development of the seventh art at home, in Slovenia and abroad, through extensive acquirement of knowledge. In any case, we wish to fulfill insufficient film education in primary and high schools.
One of our long term objectives is a library or a media library, where we would not only be able to get technical literature, but also representative history film achievements. We would lay a great stress upon the Slovenian (professional and unprofessional) film production and on the regional, as far as they could make their way into the film language.
This could have a significant role in creating new movie experts. In addition could suchlike events trigger far-reaching changes in the area of cinematography, because of its positive influence on the sphere of economy and tourism (ex: in the case of connecting with other regions and countries).
We believe we know how to stimulate the development of movie culture and expand the activity circle of all the film fanciers and this way form a specifically defined base of co-workers, through our extensive knowledge of film culture.
4. CONCLUSION
We are convinced that you will come to a conclusion, that our activity is qualitatively pawned and that knowledge of film history, contemporary trends of film productions and other suchlike projects in our own country and abroad sufficiently proved.
We hope that you will perceive the need for development and expanding of cinematographic offer in Maribor, as complementary to work existing film offer, form inside of the “multiplexes”, as well as the spaces of other art practices. Our purpose is to assure an offer that will be representative and rich, but most importantly, it will continually address the public.
Društvo za razvoj filmske kulture Maribor