About the cinema
Novska Cinema is part of the Public Open University Novska and is currently the central institution for culture in the town of Novska. The cinema hosts regular screenings every weekend and at specially arranged slots for organised screenings.
Novska Cinema is equipped with a cutting-edge digital projector with a 3D system and can screen all contemporary cinematic contents, both 2D and 3D. The theatre was renovated in 2008 and installed with all multimedia equipment. It has 222 seats.
In addition to the usual audio equipment required for different multimedia events, the theatre also has a Dolby Digital surround system providing top class audio image at film screenings. Next to popular titles, Novska Cinema began listing more and more alternative content, documentary films, Croatian films, European cinema and, increasingly, amateur film as part of different projects and school workshops. The cinema is a member of Europa Cinemas organisation and Croatian Independent Cinema Network.
History of Novska Cinema
In 1928 Novska saw its first film show in the back yard of Ivan Pejaković’s family home in former 26 Kolodvorska Street. The same venue was used for performances by Novska’s amateur players. The films were screened by the Kočka family, whose daughters were artists performing their acts before the film shows.
Next to a building in King Tomislav Street which later housed a cinema, the owner had an arc built with a sign ‘Edison Cinema’, honouring the inventor. In the mid-1930s, film shows became an important part of cultural life for the people of Novska. Historical records show that the ‘audience was mesmerised by moving pictures’. Most often it screened film journals, but also film arriving to Novska from Zagreb by train as ‘a fast and regular means of transportation’.
The Hungarian Fodor family moved from Vojvodina to Novska just before World War II and brought with them the very first cinema equipment for screenings of films with sound. The cinema was located at the Croatian House in Osijek Street. Today there is a Firemen’s House on this location.
Film programmes also took place at the former Knopp Hotel, built in the late 19th century by tradesman and landowner Adalbert Knopp. Next to dance parties, concerts and performances by travelling players troupes, citizens also had a chance to watch movies.
The Partizan Cinema began operating in 1946. On the corner of today’s King Tomislav Street and Zagreb Street, it showed films every day except Friday and had 190 seats.
In the late 1950s, construction work on a new cinema began on today’s Franjo Tuđman Square. The construction envisaged the demolition of many old villas and buildings, so the one-storey building with teachers’ apartments was also torn down for the purposes of the new cinema.
At the new location, the cinema was part of People’s University Novska.
On 4 October 1991, the very centre of Novska was bombed in the Homeland War and the cinema was also destroyed, along with the entire People’s University building. The cinema was renovated in 1992, and screenings began in 1993.
In 2008 the theatre was again redecorated and installed with cutting-edge equipment. In addition to film screenings, it is used for other cultural and educational events.