Classic Films Screen Free on Sava Centar Rooftop

Bringing an old film back to the big screen usually means a darkened hall and heavy red velvet, so the idea of a screen set up above the city instead reads as a small shift in that habit. TS Media, the multimedia arm of Telekom Srbija, has announced a project called “Film Lives” together with Sava Centar, a run of free evening screenings of remastered Serbian classics in the open air, right on the roof of the New Belgrade landmark, from June 12 to 14.

The programme offers six titles across three nights, drawn from what you might call the post-Yugoslav canon, that body of films several generations know almost by heart. Now audiences are invited to see them as they were actually shot, without the faded colour and cracked sound of old tapes.

Which films are showing and how do you get in?

The lineup features the titles people tend to name when they want to explain what Serbian cinema can be: Budimir Trajkovic’s Love Life, How the Rock’n’Roll Died, The Feather Collectors, The Return of the Written-Off, Balkan Express and My Dad for a Limited Time. It is a spread that crosses several decades and several registers, from melancholy and social drama to a brighter, near cult comedy, wide enough to give each evening its own crowd.

Admission is free, though not unconditional. Visitors must reserve a seat in advance through a dedicated link, a sensible move for an open-air space with a limited number of chairs and a view of the city that charges admission in attention all on its own. The screenings run in the evening, when the Sava Centar roof catches just enough light to keep a film serious without spoiling the mood around it.

The project was presented on June 8, and the choice of venue is no accident. For decades Sava Centar hosted premieres, festivals and large conference gatherings, so the return of film to its roof feels like the quiet continuation of an interrupted habit, now moved from the formal hall into the open air.

What is left after three nights?

The most interesting part of the announcement is not the weekend itself but what is promised behind it. TS Media said it plans to restore and digitally remaster more than 1,000 titles, which is no longer a festival gesture but something closer to a cultural policy toward a country’s own archive. The work means improving picture and sound quality, a job rarely seen yet one without which old film slowly disappears on its own.

Aleksandra Martinovic, director of the Multimedia Directorate at Telekom Srbija, summed up the plan by saying that the greatest works of cinema do not belong only to the time in which they were made, but remain a lasting value that connects generations. The phrasing is, of course, ceremonial, but behind it sits concrete work on a thousand titles, which is more than a mere anniversary note.

The greatest works of cinema do not belong only to the time in which they were made, but remain a lasting value that connects generations. (Aleksandra Martinovic, director of the Multimedia Directorate at Telekom Srbija)

How that larger undertaking will look remains to be seen, but three free nights on a rooftop make a fine starting point for one simple test: when did you last watch a Serbian classic the way it was meant to be seen, on a big screen and among strangers who laugh in the same places you do?