About the project
Our project aim was publishing a book of critical essays and a corresponding web site dedicated to starting a wide public discussion on nature and development of national culture and pop culture in Serbia. The project “New Frames” gathered 14 younger Serbian film critics in order to publish a book of essays on Serbian cinema, under the working title “The Secrets and Phenomena of Serbian Film”, which ended in the final title New Frames: Marginalized Values of Serbian Cinema (edited by Ivan Velisavljevic and Dejan Ognjanovic). The ambition of the book was to critically re-evaluate some of the most interesting, forgotten, marginalized or eccentric Serbian films or phenomena (such as Serbian crime movies, Queer and Camp aesthetics in Serbian film, losers and hobos…). At the same time, the book was aimed to offer views on films, trends and directions of artistic and business development that young critics considered relevant and positive today. This would be the way of offering a new, fresh view and analysis of Serbian cinema, along with an envisioned way of future development. The project was done successfully: the book was published and the website celebrates a year of its Internet existence.
Professional capacity was built first within the website: the website novikadrovi.net now serves as a virtual cultural centre where the authors (contributors to the book and other relevant writers and publicists) published their texts (Review section has almost 70 reviews written by our contributors), discuss current issues (open, moderated Internet forum for exchange of ideas, thoughts and opinions is now an integral part of the website) make contacts and exchange opinions. The latter essentially contributed to build the professional capacities of young and emerging practitioners (almost all our members are younger than 35, and this was their debut in academic writing on film), since their contacts enabled work in different fields. Each contributor made his/hers professional contacts available to other contributors, which created a certain number of jobs for the contributors. Magazine Huper (www.myspace.com/huper) now has 8 New Frames authors as its journalists, film critics and columnists. With website and forum (more than 100 visits per day, around 3000 hints), public lectures at Dom omladine and Biblioteka grada Beograda (www.bgb.org.yu), where New Frames author Srdjan Vucinic edits the lecture program, and of course with the book on the bookstore shelves, cultural debate is started.
The book New Frames: Marginalized Values of Serbian Cinema by its own title tells about the issue it addresses: marginalized topics, genres and people represented in Serbian cinema. By writing on these themes and pointing out the unjustified cultural inequality in their cinematic treatment, our contributors supported cultural diversity. The book content, with films, genres and characters it touches, and with socially important questions on cultural diversity and relation to the cultural tradition, presents innovative creation – the fact that there is no other book in previous 5 years with the topic even similar to ours, tells a lot.
2007 Novi kadrovi, supported by Open Society Institute New York, and Swiss Cultural Programme Pro Helvetia Beograd, website by Luka Cinc