Kino Udarnik

Afect performing at Kino Udarnik, FAK Festival of Alternative Culture, 2019. Kino Udarnik is an old cinema hall built in 1935. In 2010 the Udarnik was re-opened after a few years hiatus, by the team of Zavod Udarnik, however, not coping with the costly rent and the meagre funding by the Municipality of Maribor the programme was cancelled in 2016

In 2018 the Kino Udarnik has been rented by another NGO, the team of SAK (Društvo za spoznavanje alternativne kulture) that had organised in Maribor a few editions of the Festival of Alternative Culture (FAK). The venue is open only at the time of events, for the beginning those will be mostly the concerts. In April Udarnik hosted Laibach, in May the Gipsy Balcan Orchestra.

Background

Kino Udarnik was built in 1935 on the accord of a wealthy local family Guštin and was planned by the famed architect Vladimir Šubic. It was originally designed as the elite Maribor city cinema hall and was also a popular community centre, hosting even some sort of striptease evenings in the 1950s. In the late '90s, it started programming art films, became a member of the Art Cinema Network and hosted, for example, the DokMa International Film Festival. In that same time Udarnik started to lose audiences due to the newly opened multiplex on the city outskirts and in 2008, its operations were brought to a halt.

Zavod Udarnik and their programmes 2010-2016

Run by an enthusiastic team of a small NGO, Kino Udarnik in the period 2010–2015 housed a versatile programme of art films and organised a very diverse set of cultural events. After re-opening, Kino Udarnik once again started with a quality, art cinema-oriented programme and was one of the rare venues in Slovenia that regularly presented experimental films and various new works by un-established film makers. Regular screenings were organised in collaboration with the Slovenian Cinematheque and were called "The Embassy of Cinematheque" series. These screenings were sometimes followed by a discussion or artist's talk (for example, a conversation of the computer art pioneer Eduard Zajc with the theorist Melita Zajc) and co-organised with institutions such as SCCA-Ljubljana Centre for Contemporary Arts). Udarnik hosted the Maribor part of the Animateka International Animated Film Festival, the Stoptrik International Film Festival, the international children and youth film festival Little elephant and – together with Vetrinjski dvor – ran a summer open-air cinema series and the children's festival Vilinsko mesto ("The Elf City"). A rich multidisciplinary programme was set up alongside, with regular music concerts and DJ nights, film education workshops and occasional lectures. Udarnik collaborates with many other NGOs from Maribor, like GT22 and the son:DA Foundation and was featured strongly in the Maribor, European Capital of Culture 2012 programme. It also had a small shop with various artisan products and a bar.

Not coping with the costly rent and the meagre funding by the Municipality of Maribor which eventually cancelled the programme funding in 2016, the team of Zavod Udarnik had to move out. They resumed their activities with Mobile Kino Udarnik programme, first at the nearby Vetrinjski dvor, later on in the Blackbox of the GT22 cultural centre, also located in the Maribor City Centre.