In the aftermath of the Second World War, film and cinema were of central political, economic, cultural, and educational importance in the newly established Yugoslav State. Thus, a twofold development took place in the cinematic sphere: Besides the establishment of a professional film industry with strong political and economic interest, film amateurism was politically fostered and institutionalized in ciné clubs. Thereby, ordinary people gained access to filmmaking as a new way of expression, experimentation, and cultural participation. The amateurs began to engage theoretically and practically in filmmaking, organized film festivals, and developed specific film styles in the numerous Yugoslav ciné clubs. While the amateur film movement is widely known as a hotbed of the Yugoslav New Wave and experimental strands, much less attention is paid to those filmmakers who remained unknown and their numerous amateur productions.

The project tackles this lack of research by approaching amateur film making as a practices and representations of everyday life. It is asking for the ways in which ordinary people made use of film cameras, practically and visually participated in a mass (media) culture, recorded their surroundings, and aesthetically shaped their experiences. Three main points are thereby of interest: 1) the topics which the film amateurs encountered, 2) the audiovisual strategies with which they did so and 3) how they thereby participated in political, social, and artistic processes. The research will thus shed light on the way in which people made sense, coped and appropriated sociopolitical discourses in Yugoslavia and thereby participated in shaping visual modernity. Doing so, it is not only the understanding of the Yugoslav film history that will be enhanced by going beyond its commercial and professional practices. It will also be possible to locate Yugoslav amateur film in a transnational development and thus show linkages of a vernacular film cultures with much larger contexts.