History

The Cinematheque of Macedonia is a national film archive, founded in 1974, and it started its official work in 1976. The main goals and aims are acquisition, collecting, preservation, catalogization, researching and presentation of films and audio-visual materials of special artistic, cultural, scientific, historic and other social significance, with special emphasis on the national audio-visual cultural heritage. Also, the Macedonian Cinematheque collects films and film reportages about Macedonia, filmed in Macedonia, from foreign cinematographers and film producers, as well as foreign film production.

The executive council of the parliament of SR Macedonia, on 25^th march 1976, named Atanas-Aco Petrovski, film worker from Skopje, as the first director of the Cinematheque.

There are three departments in the Cinematheque of Macedonia: the Film Archive or Department for acquisition, safeguarding, preservation, restoration and cataloguing films and film materials, the Department for documentation consisting of the Written Documentation Department, the Phototeque and Library, as well as the Department or Public Relation, Researching and Publishing.

The Macedonian cinematheque manages a fund of over 16.000 film copies, over 82.000 pieces of propaganda material, photos and posters, as well as over 200 length meters written documents. There is also a specialized library with over 4.500 books and international magazines on film history and film theory and around 35.500 press clippings. The Cinematheque also has a collection of old cinematography apparatus, projectors, cameras etc.

In 2005, the Cinematheque of Macedonia moved to new premises (into the building of the City library Drugarche) where it also has a cinema theater with 136 seats, a gallery and new air-conditioned depots for preservation of the national film heritage, built in 2009, according to the latest world standards. The foreign audio-visual production, on the other hand, is stored in the film depots in the Havzi-Pasha Shelters, in the village of Bardovci, in the vicinity of Skopje.

Over its 40 years of activity, the Cinematheque has constantly taken care of the entire audio-visual heritage, by implementing a multitude of significant projects for protection and restoration of the Macedonian film production. Furthermore, the Cinematheque is the initiator and long-term organizer, i.e. one of the organizers of the International Cinematographers’ Film Festival “Manaki Brothers” in Bitola; the Cinematheque is also the publisher of the “Kinopis” magazine, as well as more than 40 important film editions and publications; the Cinematheque has published the multimedia CD “The Century of Film in Macedonia” and managed the web-site of Macedonian Informative Film Center with encyclopedic data of Macedonian cinematography, available since 2002; the Cinematheque constantly nourishes the development of film culture by regular film programs in Skopje, as well as presentations around the country; the Cinematheque is also the organizer of a large number of international scientific symposiums and projects.

The Cinematheque is a member of the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF) and the Association of the European Cinematheques (ACE).

Thanks to the high ranking status on the international level, the Cinematheque was the organizer and host of the jubilee 70^th FIAF Congress which took place in Skopje with the participation of 200 delegates from all over the world.

In 2019, due to constitutional changes, Cinematheque of Macedonia has changed it’s name to Cinematheque of North Macedonia.