The History of Screening on the Island of Korčula

The artistic research into the history of cinematic screening on the island of Korčula is the first phase of an interdisciplinary research project the objective of which is to map the screening facilities for films of the island of Korčula during the 20th century and at the present time. The second phase will cover research into the history of shooting films on and related to the island. The research was also carried out as part of preparations for the shooting of a documentary film, Kino otok  (Islands of Forgotten Cinemas, directed by Ivan Ramljak, 2016), which takes up the history of film screenings on the Croatian islands and the attitude of people to cinematography and the art of the film. The core of research carried out in 2014 consisted of talks with some fifty witnesses of that time, shot in the field. The research material has been mostly constructed from their memories, and a few published texts about particular film themes concerning Žrnovo, Vela Luka and Blato; all the locations at which cinemas worked either temporarily or over a longer period on the island have been mapped, a chronology of their working has been established, and many personal reminiscences have been collected giving an insight into the social importance, development and decay of the culture of the cinema in this area.
In Vela Luka, for instance, the first cinema on the island, named after Nikola Tesla, was opened in 1909 – it was the fifth to be opened in the whole of Dalmatia. In the 1930s there were four active cinemas, owned by private persons or the church, and in the 1950s there were ten cinemas owned by cooperatives and culture centres. Today there is just one cinema, in the city of Korčula. The address will feature the facts explored, parts of the photographic documentation and the attitude of the population to cinematography and the art of the film during the 20th century.

Vela Luka
The history of Vela Luka cinema theatres is very extensive and dates back to 1909 (some sources say 1911). The cinema theatre in Vela Luka opened after Split, Rijeka, Zadar and Dubrovnik was the fifth cinema theatre in the whole of Dalmatia. Its name, Nikola Tesla was one of the earliest echoes of the glory of that scientist in the South Slavic region. This information may be interesting because at the time there were cinemas in the Austro-Hungarian empire mainly named after Tesla’s competitor – Thomas Edison. Cinema Nikola Tesla was started by a merchant Kuzma Padovan Kolega, a wine broker Anthony Mirošević Delija and Rudolf Naglić from the city of Rijeka. It was situated in the so-called Kunjašić building on the waterfront (where today hotel Korkyra is), next to the former Hotel Jagoda. Silent films were screened with the 35 mm Pathé Frères projectors and accompanied by live piano music. At some point piano became semi-mechanic, i.e. it could produce a melody without a human player. The projector was driven by the engine of the Benz brand. Some of the films screened at that time were the documentary From the Balkan War and Over the Simplon, as well as the feature film Saint Paul (about life and passion of the eponymous saint), Head for the Head (the love story of a gardener and a duchess in revolutionary France) and The Horror of Sin (about romance novels as a source of sin and life destruction). Many comedies were shown, especially those with Tontolini as the main character, played by the Italian-French actor Guillaume Ferdinand. Cinema Nikola Tesla remained functional until the beginning of World War I, then the screening activities were resumed in 1921 and continued intermittently until 1935 (some sources say 1938). At that time projectionists were Ivan Mirošević called Žuvan, son of one of the owners of the cinema, and later Josip Tabain (called Sokol), while projections took place on Saturdays and Sundays, in the afternoon and at night.
In 1938 another Vela Luka’s cinema theatre opened, also called Nikola Tesla, but at a different location in a modest house of Vojislav Vlašić, right next to the primary school building. It was managed by Drago Lovričević and Jerko Mikulandra, who bought the equipment from the old cinema. They took over and employed the projectionist Josip Tabain Sokol, but their plans were disrupted by Hitler’s attack on Poland, and the theatre lost its license to operate in late 1939.
The third cinema theatre in Vela Luka started with the projections in 1950 in Cooperative house (later House of Culture). The initiator of the action was an agricultural cooperative. Cinema had a continuous program until the end of the 1980s, and sometimes there were organized projections outdoors as well, in the courtyard of today’s kindergarten. Most of the time the projectionist was Mladen Tabain, son of Josip Sokol. In October 1992, the screening activities n the House of Culture were relaunched by Tonči Surjan, who a few years later, in the winters of 1995 and 1996, organized screenings in other places on the island of Korćula: Blato, Čara, Korčula and Lumbarda. While the cinema theatres were closing all around Croatia one enthusiast managed to rebuild almost the whole cinema network on the island. Unfortunately due to financial reasons, it did not last long, but the cinema in Vela Luka in the House of Culture had a regular program until 2007. At that time the most popular films on the island were Titanic (directed by James Cameron, 1997) and How the War Started on My Island (directed by Vinko Brešan, 1996). Parallelly, Tonči Surjan organized projections in the open air cinema in Korčula city from 2000 to 2009.

Blato
The first cinema in Blato was launched in 1921 in a private house of Marko Petković at Zlinje and it was called Belgrade. The owner of the house bought a projector in Trieste and bought about twenty silent films from Italy. He also exchanged films with the owners of other cinemas on the Croatian and the Italian coast. Films were subtitled in the Italian language, so a student of pharmacology Ivo Andrić Malandrin performed live translating. As he was not an expert in the Italian language, he often improvised and invented plot. Screenings were held on Saturdays and Sundays (two screenings each day). The cinema theatre had about 200 seats. Some of the films were accompanied by music and a mechanical piano. At the time of Lent, only religious films were shown, and during the screening of one of them, about the life of Francis of Assisi, the fire caught the filmstrip, and the owner of the cinema barely saved his life. Then Marko Petkovic buried all the movies in a tin box in the ground, where they, of course, rotted. However, in 1935 he bought a new projector and continued running the cinema. One of the films was Ramona (directed by Henry King, 1936), the first sound film shown in Blato. Nearby the cinema Petković opened a small store where the visitors could buy sweets to enjoy with projections. Although the stories are contradictory it seems that the cinema functioned also during the fascist Italian occupation, until the arrival of the partisans when Petković was prohibited to work and his cinema was taken away from him.
In the 1930s in Blato the films were screened in the Health Center. Those were the educational films made by the prominent School of Public Health from Zagreb, such as those about diphtheria (Help at a Good Time) and tuberculosis (Beware of Rose and Saliva from the Mouth of Another). Another official cinema in Blato opened in 1946 on the premises of the gymnasium society called Croatian Falcon. One of the first films on the program was a Russian sci-fi spectacle Stone Flower (directed by Alexander Ptushko, 1946), the first Soviet film in colour. Cinema functioned only until 1948 when a new, third cinema theatre was opened. The cinema Morkan was named after the nearby locality where the partisans were hiding during the war. It worked until 1954. At the same time in Blato, an open air cinema was active as well. According to testimonies, the film Gone With the Wind (directed by Victor Fleming, 1939) was shown, a film whose four hours duration were not easy to endure while sitting on a wooden bench. In those years, movies were occasionally screened in the west wing of the Pioneers’ house (today’s High School Blato), where there was a hall in which theatrical performances took place as well, so it is possible that at the turn of the 1949s to 1950s in Blato there were even three cinemas which operated simultaneously. Film activities from 1954 onwards moved to a newly built House of Culture in which for the next ten years screenings used to take place every day except Fridays. By the mid-1980s the screenings were organized only occasionally.

Smokvica
Film screenings in the Cooperative house (later House of Culture) in Smokvica became operational in 1956. Peasants’ working cooperative Jerko Tomasić, a leading local winery purchased a 35mm projector. Projections used to take place on Thursdays and Sundays. The program started with a history drama Lucrezia Borgia (directed by Christian-Jaque, 1953) and the children’s film Miracle Beans. Cinema had as many as 420 seats, made by the carpenter’s cooperative in Blato. Witnesses claim that during the first ten years almost all screenings were sold out. Films for adults used to be shown on Thursdays so the projections began at 20 h and 22 h, and Sundays shows for children started at  17 h. Before every projection, a school administrator read out loudly the plot in front of the audience and indicated whether the film was for juvenile eyes. Projectionists were Daroslav Tomašić, Ante Baničević and Zdravko Salečić. Cinema theatre was continuously operated until 1985. In the mid-1990s Tonči Surjan tried to renew the screening activities (see under the chapter about Vela Luka), but this was not possible due to the dilapidated floor in the cinema theatre.

Čara
Cinema theatre started in 1953 thanks to the 16 mm projector which was bought by an immigrant to New Zealand, Ljubo Laus, who was known as well for the donation of a saxophone to the people of his birthplace. Screenings took place in the Cooperative home on Wednesdays and Saturdays and very often this improvised cinema theatre with 155 seats was filled. After a while, a 35 mm Iskra projector was bought and brought from Pakrac to Korčula. Unlike most similar devices on Korčula which used electrodes, this one used the light emitted by lamps, which often burned out, so the projections were interrupted, and the audience had to wait for the projector lamp to cool to be replaced by another lamp. Most of the time, a projectionist was Spaso Krajancic, and it was custom to screen the popular newsreel before the movies, a kind of forerunner of TV news. Some of the most popular films in Čara were so-called westerns e.g. Canyon Crossroads (directed by Alfred L. Werker, 1956) and the musical The Sound of Music (directed by Robert Wise, 1965), and continuous program in the theatre lasted until the end of the eighties. The cinema was briefly renovated in the mid-1990s (see under the chapter about Vela Luka), and the last movie ever shown in Čara was the Legends of the Fall (directed by Edward Zwick, 1994).

Pupnat
In June 1930 the cinema theatre opened in Pupnat as well, in the building of the parish office. The initiative was launched by a local priest, Božo Bačić, and the first film ever screened in Pupnat was Life of Christ and the audience reaction was “that film was so nice that many cried”. Films were screened with a small, home 9.5 mm projector model Pathé Baby. The image size was 1,5 by 1 meter. The program took place only for a few years, and only movies with religious content were shown. Never after that, there were regular cinema programs in Pupnat, but it is recorded that often one-day “roaming” cinema apparatuses came from Čara and Žrnovo during the 60s and 70s. These projections were held in the House of Culture. In the same period, Zdravko Dužević Caka used to come to the village from nearby Orebić. He used to bring his equipment and with the 16 mm projector played mostly his movies which had been filmed during his frequent travels. The occasional guest at Pupnat was also Don Albert Novak, with a small projector that was moved by turning the pedals of the bicycle.

Žrnovo
It is well known that the first cinema in Žrnovo was in the hall on the first floor of a private house of Pavle Pavlović Pavuleto in the small village Postrana. It became operational in 1946, while a 16 mm projector was bought with the immigrants’ money. Projectionists were brothers Ivo and Tino Šegedin, and cinema was popularly called Čelinja, after a nearby location where during WWII the partisans were hiding. Except as the cinema theatre, the hall functioned as a place where theatrical performances took place, as well as wedding ceremonies, lectures, etc., even before 1946. Since there were no seats in the hall, visitors brought the chairs from their own homes. Some of the films which were screened: Russian war film No Greater Love (directed by Fridrikh Ermler, 1943), and local hits Slavica (directed by Vjekoslav Afrić, 1947) and Uncle Žvane (directed by Vjekoslav Afrić, 1949). There is a humorous text about the cinema Impact of Mikota Sablašćine on the seventh art, by Ante I. Curać, but some anecdotes mentioned in it are refuted by the witnesses of the time. Cinema theatre worked until the beginning of the 1960s, and then closed, while the hall has almost kept its original form. Recently, it has been refurbished by Pavlović’s grandson Paval Pavlović.
The second cinema theatre in the Žrnovo was in the House of Culture, which opened in 1962. The first movie shown was The Old Man and the Sea (directed by John Sturges, 1958), a copy of which was illegally borrowed from Korčula. 35 mm projector was also bought with the immigrants’ money. Screenings were held on Saturdays and Sundays, until 1969. Among films screened during this period one of the most popular series was Winnetou, as well, already forgotten, disaster movie by Sergio Leone The Last Days of Pompeii (1959). After a ten year interruption, the program was renewed at the end of the 1970s. Among other films on the program were, then popular erotic movies such as The Fruit is Ripe (directed by Sigi Rothemund, 1977) and Emannuelle (directed by Just Jaeckin, 1974). The projections were regularly held until the mid-1980s. Screening activities in Žrnovo finally ceased in 2002 after the projector had been destroyed by fire.

Korčula
The first cinema in the town of Korčula was opened in 1926 in an improvised tent on the western waterfront. Soon it moved to a nearby renovated former warehouse from the First World War. It was managed by a Russian emigrant, a photographer Nikola Losjakov. It was called Napredak (meaning Progress, although some sources claim the name was Central), and the films were projected thanks to the projector Pathé France. The Red Cross also organized projections at the cinema, and one of those, on New Year’s Eve of 1929, was suddenly interrupted by a fire in the engine that powered the projector, which was located in a nearby tower Barbarigo.
A year later Falconry Society in Korčula met a decision on the regulation of the cinema in their hall and started to inquire about purchasing the necessary equipment. At the beginning of 1932, the first screening was held, The Cossacks (directed by George W. Hill, 1928). Cinema was led by the wife of the aforementioned Losjakov, with the help of her son. In May of that year, Korčula Franciscans spread the rumour that in Falconry Society projection of a romantic film took place on Good Friday, which caused a stir in the city, but it turned out to be false. Cinema in Falconry Society existed until the fascist occupation, but also during the occupation time since the Italians were very aware of the power of film propaganda. Not even the arrival of the partisans broke the activity of the cinema theatre in Falconry Society which continued until the early 1950s. Witnesses say that the screenings required the presence of firefighters who prevented any attempt at lighting a cigarette, for fear of fire. At that time, due to an inflammable film strip, often “a hole appeared on the screen”, which expanded rapidly because the film was set on fire in the projector itself.
On December 26, 1953, a Cultural Centre was inaugurated in Korčula and as a part of it, the third indoor cinema theatre in the city. It was managed by the family Lozica - Nikša was a director of the cinema and actually of the whole Cultural Centre, Kruno was a bouncer, his wife Jula used to sell the tickets, and brother Aco worked as a projectionist, assisted by Anđelko Dužević. From this period a communal policeman Laza Bošković is remembered for the fact that he sometimes let the youngsters from poorer families who could not afford the ticket to enter the cinema. Projections were, with short breaks, held until 2013 when Cultural Centre became the first island cinema theatre in Croatia equipped with digital equipment (DCP).
Popular movies made before WWII that are still remembered among cinephiles are Battleship Potemkin (directed by Sergei Eisenstein, 1925), The Lady of the Camellias (it is questionable which version was installed) and Robin Hood (directed by Michael Curtiz, 1938), and of later screenings Man with a gun (probably directed by Richard Wilson, 1955) and Kamasutra - Vollendung der Liebe (directed by Kobi Jaeger, 1969).
The first open air cinema opened in 1950 on the site of the old Losjakovs Progress, on the western waterfront, with a projection of The Battle of Stalingrad (directed by Vladimir Petrov, 1950). Cinema functioned for a few years only. Another open air cinema in Korčula opened in 1956 in the area of ​​Falconry Society gymnasium ranges, along the southern side of the Old City. Projections were held there until 2011, with occasional breaks. Since then, space was used for Moreška performances, Marco Polo Fest and Korkyra Jazz Festival.

Lumbarda
Cinema theatre performances began regularly in 1955 after the construction of the Cooperative House, which later would become the House of Culture. The projectionist was Ivica Magdalenić, soon replaced by Lenko Žuvela. Films were screened on Saturdays and Sundays, and the inhabitants of Lumbarda were informed about the cinema program over the public sound system whereby the speakers were installed in the most of small nearby villages. Cinema screenings in the House of Culture were especially popular with Lumbarda youth who entered into it over the roof without paying for a ticket. Popular movies on the program of the Lumbarda theatres were The Ninth Circle (directed by Franc Štiglic, 1960), H-8 (directed by Nikola Tanhofer, 1958), and local hit film Slavica, but also many westerns like e.g. Shane (directed by George Stevens, 1953) and Bad Day at Black Rock (directed by John Sturges, 1955). Cinema, with its regular program, worked until the early 1980s, and then, after a few years of intermezzo, moved into a new building popularly called the Levant. There it functioned continuously from the mid to late 1980s. The screenings were later organized only in the winters of 1995 and 1996 (see under
the chapter about Vela Luka), but even today in the projection booth of the ex-cinema you can find the Iskra 35 mm projectors.

Račišće
Cinema Mornar (meaning Sailor) at the former House of Culture continuously operated from 1963 to 1973. Then the decision was made to renovate the House of Culture, and the cinema theatre was reconstructed, so the screenings activities were interrupted. Today on that site is the hotel Mediterranean, with an associated café. The first movie ever shown in the cinema theatre Sailor was The Ninth Circle (directed by Franc Štiglic, 1960), and among the popular films were the Indian drama Mother India (directed by Mehboob Khan, 1957), as well as a French adventurous Night Knight (originally Le Bossu, directed by André Hunebelle, 1959). Projectionists were Andrija Gugić – Boško and Ivan Botica Pelin.
Some residents of Račišće remember as well an open air cinema on the square outside the shop.

Literature:
Barčot, Tonko. Rani odjek Tesline slave - nove spoznaje o kinematografskoj aktivnosti u Veloj Luci do 2. svjetskog rata. Unpublished.
Barčot, Tonko. Crtice iz kinematografske prošlosti Korčule. Unpublished.
Curać, Ante I. Utjecaj nenamjerni Mikota Sablašsćine na sedmu umjetnost. (2007) www.korcula.net, Korčula
Group of authors (1990). Sjećanje jedne generacije. In: Gradski odbor Udruženja boraca narodnooslobodilačkog rata, Korčula
Marinović, Filip i Tonko Barčot (2004). Kino Tesla. In: Luško libro, no. 12, Vela Luka - Zagreb
Petković, Frano (1994). Kino. In: Fižul 2-94. Blato.

Ivan Ramljak

Ivan Ramljak: POVIJEST KINOPRIKAZIVALAŠTVA NA OTOKU KORČULI, INFORMATICA MUSEOLOGICA 47 2016. Zagreb, pdf (Croatian with Englsih summary)