2019 was a very successful year for Kinodvor, namely, for the first time in the eleven years in operation they exceeded the threshold of 130,000 visitors.

134,052 visitors saw over 360 film programmes at 2254 screenings, including the record visit of the Cinema under the stars prepared in cooperation with the Ljubljana Castle, where we recorded 16,700 viewers. It is also important to highlight admission-free screenings of four film classics at the Summer Cinema in Congress Square seen by additional 5,600 viewers. The film education programmes for young audiences include Kinobalon for children and young people, Kinotrip – the youth for the youth and the Kinodvor programme for schools with 40,698 viewers last year, among them 14,966 saw the regular Kinobalon programme, 1,963 the regular Kinotrip programme with the festival, and 23,769 pupils and students screenings within the school programme.

The most watched film in 2019 is…

The most watched film of the year with 4,142 viewers is Pain and Glory (Dolor y gloria), an autobiographical ode to film creativity directed by Pedro Almodóvar. With the film premiere in September we opened the new cinema season, and in addition set up an exhibition of posters and photos titled Almodóvar: Image and Colour in the revitalized Gallery and published a new booklet in the series Devoted to Film dedicated, of course, to the Spanish master of film.
But the remarkable turnout last year was not marked by one prominent favourite of film viewers, it was several well-attended film titles that contributed to the record number of viewers. And so, among the ten most watched titles we can find very different films, for instance, the Slovenian film My Last Year as a Loser (Ne bom več luzerka) with over 3,000 viewers, the documentary Maria Callas with almost 2,500 viewers, that was mostly screened in the Small Hall, and the children’s film The Incredible Story of a Giant Pear with over 2,700 viewers.

Slovenian film at the centre of Kinodvor

Last year was also marked by a strong presence of Slovenian film. We held eight premieres of Slovenian films, including a film and music event with the film History of Love at the Slovenian Philharmonic, and two editions Our Short Ones, all with film creators present.
Let It Roll – first take
From 13 to 15 June, a trial run of the new festival Let It Roll was carried out at Kinodvor. At the festival of music film, organised in co-production with the initiator of the festival Iniciativa, we presented eleven very different films for different tastes in music and film. On 18 June, in cooperation with the Jazz Festival Ljubljana we added a »bonus track«: actor and director Mathieu Amalric came to visit and presented a unique film experiment he has been co-creating with John Zorn since 2010.

Forward view

The biggest challenge for Kinodvor – in addition to fulfilling its mission of a city cinema – is certainly the construction of a miniplex in the Ajdovščina underpass, with which we can meet the appropriate conditions comparable to European standards for the operation of a city cinema. Just before the end of the year we published, together with the Chamber of Architecture and Spatial Planning of Slovenia, an architectural competition for the design of the miniplex, which is closing in the beginning of March.