Central film archive cinema reconstructed

TIRANA, September 14 – The Albanian central film archive inaugurated on Tuesday a new 80-seat cinema which underwent full reconstruction 10 years after its opening.
The cinema, reconstructed under a 20 million lek fund by the Culture Ministry, has had its cinema, halls, offices, alarm and air conditioning systems fixed.
The ERNEMANN projector, produced by Germany-based CineProject, was made available by Albanian government’s programme “heritage for social-economic development” financed by the Spanish government and implemented by the UNDP and UNESCO, the Film Archive said in a statement.
A storage server was also made possible under the project to further continue the computerization of the film archive collection.
Culture Minister Ferdinand Xhaferaj and Spanish Ambassador to Albania Manuel Montobbio attended the inauguration ceremony which was followed by the screening of Honeymoons, the first Albanian-Serbian co-production produced and directed by Goran Paskaljevic. Written by Paskaljevic and Albania’s Genc Permeti, the film was shot in Serbia, Albania and Italy.
Established in 1947 as the Albanian Film Enterprise, the current Albanian State Central Film Archive was initially conceived as a warehouse for the purpose of storing the films collected through the nationalization of the private cinemas.
In 1970, the Film Archives became a FIAF full-fledged member of the Film International Archives Federation (FIAF), based in Paris.
The construction of the new building for the Film Archives started in 1989 and was completed in 1990, when the transfer of its stock took place.
In 2003, the Archive was enriched with film negatives of the Albanian cinematography.