christopher robbins («home«)
The cinema works again! / Ponovo radi bioskop. Christopher Robbins (2008).
Video, defunct swimming pool, residents of Vranje, Serbia.
still from Bring It On: All Or Nothing, original and Vranje-style
the swimming pool.
As part of a series of public art projects initiated by Nikoletta Markovic and Generator, we organized Vranje residents around the idea of turning their town's defunct public swimming pool into a cinema for one night, to screen movie scenes chosen and re-enacted by residents of Vranje, Serbia.
As a newcomer to Vranje, a common complaint I heard was "our public cinema is broken." The public swimming pool was broken as well. So, we decided to turn the broken public swimming pool into a free public cinema for one night. But what films to show? We asked for suggestions, and received many American films.
"Okay, well then you need to make them yourselves."
So, the films performed in Vranje, Serbia included scenes from Bring it on, Rocky IV, and Star Wars II. You can view excerpts from several of the films here.
Of course, the day of the premiere was met with unrelenting rain, so we found another suitable location - the now defunct military theatre, once used to show "national" films - and held our free public cinema there.
The title of the project is Nikoletta's suggestion: "there is a very well known line from serbian offbeat movie (Maratonci trce pocasni krug - The Marathon Family) that says: the cinema works again!"
