The Yugoslav Film Archive, Jugoslovenska Kinoteka, was founded in 1949 by the Cinema Committee of what was then the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia. Its founding document was signed by Marshal Josip Broz Tito himself.

In today’s Republic of Serbia, the Film Archive is a national institution, the key organization concerned with the preservation of an important cultural asset – namely, film materials.

Its organizational foundations were laid by its first manager, Milenko Karanović, following the methods established by the world’s finest film archives. The Film Archive’s mission is to collect, repair, preserve, and also to show films, along with associated film materials, artifacts and other objects from the varied history of cinema.

The Archive’s vast collection of materials started out as only two hundred unsorted boxes filled with nitrate film, found in Tašmajdan cave in Belgrade. The collection grew rapidly thanks to gifts from the public, purchases, acquisition of fresh copies from local producers, and constant exchanges with foreign film archives. By 1964 the Yugoslav Film Archive had already become one of the five most important film archives in the world.