Pula Film Festival 2022

Cinema screen and performance stage in the Pulski Filmski Festival 2022 in Pula's amphitheater. Little info: The sixtieth anniversary of the Pula Film Festival is an event of extreme importance not only for our film industry but also for our culture in general as well. It is the world’s oldest national festival and the festival with the largest average number of visitors per screening, which is due to the enormous auditorium in the Arena, as is the well-preserved Vespasian’s amphitheater dating from the 1st century AD popularly called. However, the first film revue held in this venue took place in 1938, while Pula was under the Italian Fascist rule. This is the reason why this was not a topic of discussion after World War II and few people even remembered the event. Actually, when Marijan Rotar (1927 – 2003), a Slovene, the director of the Pula Film Company, sent to Pula by new authorities to spur the development of culture in the city, came up with a proposal to organize a film revue in the Arena, he met huge resistance based upon the argument that it would be impossible to have film screenings of sufficient technical quality in the Arena. However, in 1953 Rotar succeeded in organizing a revue of foreign hit films with four Hollywood productions, among which Captain Horatio HornblowerR.N. from 1951 by Raoul Walsh, and four non-American films, among which Rashomon (1950) by Akira Kurosawa and We Are All Murderers (Nous sommes tous des assassins, 1952) by André Cayatte. In fact, due to its popularity, the revue was extended to two more evenings with Svet na kajžarju (1952) by Slovene director France Štiglic and nine short animated films.

The Pula Arena (Croatian: Pulska Arena; Italian: Arena di Pola) is a Roman amphitheatre located in Pula, Croatia. It is the only remaining Roman amphitheatre to have four side towers entirely preserved. It was constructed between 27 BC and AD 68, and is among the world's six largest surviving Roman arenas. The arena is also the country's best-preserved ancient monument.
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