At the 78th Cannes Film Festival, the Association of European Cinematheques (ACE) announced the sixth edition of A Season of Classic Films, in which the Yugoslav Film Archive participates with the newly restored film The Knife, directed by Žika Mitrović.
‟The Yugoslav Film Archive this year honours Žika Mitrović, a director who has greatly influenced the film genre. As part of the A1 Kinoteka initiative, we presented a restored version of the film Murder Committed in a Sly and Cruel Manner and from Low Motives at the beginning of the year.
This year, as part of the A Season of Classic Films initiative, we are happy to present another crime film by Mitrović. The Knife, a film from the 1960s, shows a remarkable modernism in theme and style. In this film, Žika Mitrović demonstrates his undisputed mastery of the genre by combining Hollywood and European traditions. I’m convinced that The Knife will be highly intriguing to a younger audience who have shaped their taste watching more recent crime films”, stated Jugoslav Pantelić, director of the Yugoslav Film Archive.
The sixth edition of A Season of Classic Films, funded by the European Commission, includes more than 40 newly restored films from 27 European film archives. The Slovenian Cinematheque, the Croatian State Archive – Croatian Cinematheque, the Slovenian Film Archive, and the Austrian Film Museum received the award for the joint restoration of Ivica Matićʼs film Woman with a Landscape (1976) and five of his experimental shorts.
The Yugoslav Film Archive participated in A Season of Classic Films with titles such as Sinner Without Sin (1930) by Kosta Novaković, Klakson (1965) by Kokan Rakonjac, The Ambush (1969) by Živojin Pavlović, and Traces of a Black-Haired Girl (1972) by Zdravko Randić.
The Archive also received the joint film restoration grant for The Peach Thief (1964), directed by Vulo Radev, in collaboration with film archives from Bulgaria and Montenegro.
