Kino Šiška, formerly the cinema with the biggest screen in the Balkan region, but now a centre for urban culture, celebrated 10 years since it was repurposed in 2009. Showing the full complexity of its past and present activity, the documentary takes us from the time when the building still served its original purpose as a cinema. This was also a time of a chronic lack of venues for contemporary music, and visual and performing arts. It moves through a spell of insecurity for the local community, when the cinema closed its doors, leading to the establishment of the central institution for urban creativity in Slovenia with the most advanced concert venue in this part of Europe.

“The essence of the documentary is intergenerational, multicultural, genre and subcultural integration. One of the biggest challenges in making this film was how to piece together the abundance of material – archival and new – into something coherent and interesting to watch, to show the complexity of the Kino Šiška Centre for Urban Culture in a way comprehensible to those unfamiliar with the range and all the strands of the venue’s activity,” says the director and screenwriter Maja Pavlin.

The film was entirely produced by Jani J. Kovačič and Matjaž Ham through RTV Slovenija with the total budget of 11,196 EUR.

Kino Šiška 10 was screened on the national television RTV Slovenija on 19 October 2019.

Maja Pavlin has worked at RTV Slovenija since 1999, as a freelance screenwriter, director and editor of music shows and documentaries focused on music and social and cultural diversity. She competed at the Festival of Slovenian Film in 2017 with full-length documentary film Charlatan Magnifique, the portrait of Magnifico, one of Slovenia’s internationally most renowned characteristic musicians.

Production Information:

Producers:
RTV Slovenija (Slovenia)

Credits:
Director: Maja Pavlin
Screenwriter: Maja Pavlin
DoP: Saša Grmek
Editors: Maja Pavlin, Martin Kastelic
Sound Designer: Tom Lemajič
Graphic Designer: Igor Nardin