On Friday, 28 August, a special selection of home movies from the Slovenian Cinematheque’s collection will be presented as part of the Kino Katarina programme in Pula. Through footage of summer holidays on the Adriatic coast in the 1970s and 1980s, the films offer glimpses of everyday life in socialist Yugoslavia.

The programme presents a selection of home movies from the Slovenian Cinematheque’s collection documenting summer holidays on the Adriatic coast during the 1970s and 1980s in socialist Yugoslavia. These amateur films serve as intimate and often light-hearted personal records of long-awaited family holidays, while at the same time offering insight into the broader social and political context of summer holidays as a phenomenon of social tourism in Yugoslavia.

The handheld 8mm camera was a frequent travel companion, accompanying families on their journeys to the coast and recording road trips along the famous Adriatic Highway (Jadranska magistrala), local landmarks, sprawling campsites, picnics, fishing trips, card games, sunbathing and outdoor dining. As the camera moves indoors, it reveals the intimate interiors of holiday apartments, workers’ resorts, bungalows, tents and camper vans, documenting both the public and private dimensions of summer leisure. Despite their intimate and domestic character, however, home movies are far from politically neutral or historically insignificant. Filmed “from below”, they constitute visual testimonies created by ordinary people documenting their immediate surroundings and social reality. In doing so, they unintentionally recorded the social, political, ideological and aesthetic fabric of both family life and Yugoslav society at large. They therefore serve as invaluable ethnographic and historical documents.

The programme was curated by Nadja Šičarov, a film restorer at the Slovenian Cinematheque, and visual artist Mia Felić. You can read more about the event here, and watch its trailer in the video below.

Song: Bojana Vunturišević: Vetar u kosi