In the 1930s, production company Yugoslav Educational Film produced numerous tourist and travelogue films about Yugoslavia. One of these was Vojin Djordjević’s city film, Beograd Prestonica Kraljevine Jugoslavije (Belgrade: Capital of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, 1932), whose gala premiere took place in mid-March 1932, at a sold-out screening at the cinema Uranija, two months after its press premiere in January 1932.
A well-known journalist, photographer, and film historian, Djordjević (1897–1985) originally worked in publishing. In 1927–8, he published the journal Film i moda (Film and Fashion), and in the 1930s he edited the Yugoslav Film Almanac as well as Strip, the first Serbian publication in which comics predominated. In 1932, he made a second film, the short Filmski Bal U Beogradu (Film Ball in Belgrade), in collaboration with Vladeta Dragutinović, Vojislav Ilić-Mlad¯i, Josip Novak, and Anton-Harry Smeh. He also became the first secretary of the National Film Centre in Belgrade, and, from 1935 to 1939, he was involved in the fascist political party, Yugoslav Radical Union.
Djordjević’s film about Belgrade is considered to have been inspired by Walter Ruttmann’s Berlin (1927). The director had started a short documentary about Belgrade in the late 1920s but had to abandon the project due to lack of funds. With the financial support of Jugoslovenski prosvetni film, he could resume his project in 1931. Belgrade: Capital of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia combines historical views of an ancient town with impressions of the modern city. The film presents typical city symphony motifs, such as the arrival by train and boat into the city, street life, morning routines, and leisure activities, while also promoting Belgrade as the threshold between East and West. The development of the city is displayed in pictures and expansion maps, not unlike in The City that Never Rests (1928). Attention is also paid to the harbor, the modernization of streets by cobblestone paving, and the military cemeteries and memorials of WWI.
According to several sources, Belgrade: Capital of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a particularly successful film at the time of its release. However, critics generally thought that it was too long and incoherent. The film fell into oblivion, and only a workprint has survived. In 2016, the Jugoslovenska Kinoteka made a digital restoration.
In 1941, Maks Kalmić made another city film about Belgrade, Priča jednog dana: Nedovršena simfonija jednog grada (Story of the Day: Unfinished Symphony of a City), which is said to be modeled after Cavalcanti’s Rien que les heures (1926).
Eva Hielscher
further reading
Daković, Nevena, “The Unfilmable Scenario and Neglected Theory: Yugoslav Avant-garde Film, 1920–1990,” in Dubravka Djurić and Miško Šuvaković (eds.), Impossible Histories: Historic Avant-Gardes, Neo-Avant-Gardes, and Post-Avant-Gardes in Yugoslavia, 1918–1991 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003), 466–89.
Jovičić, Stevan, “Kinematografija u Srbiji 1896–1941,” Südslavistik Online 2 (2010): 23–33.
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