The Most Modern and Only Cinema for Children in Croatia - News | Art-kino Croatia

New and magical Children's House – unique Rijeka’s institution created exclusively for children and their active role in culture and art – finally opened its doors in the reconstructed brick building of the former Rikard Benčić factory complex.

All possible cultural destinations that Rijeka’s youngest, but also children from the whole region can imagine are located on the four floors of the exceptional Children’s House. The House will be jointly managed by four city institutions – Rijeka City Library, Art-kino, Rijeka City Puppet Theatre and Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art – already recognised for their long-term education of children about culture and art. In the new premises the institutions will take a significant step forward by empowering children to express their 21^st century ideas with the language of culture and art. 

In addition to the newly opened library, puppet show and exhibition spaces as well as various workshop corners, Children’s House is adorned with a new cinema and two editing and sound studios that will allow children to watch and create valuable films and other audiovisual content at the highest technological level. 

The film activities at the Children’s House will be led by Art-kino, which has been nurturing work with children and for children through various educational programmes for many years. Guided by the idea that creating cultural content is as important as consuming it, in recent years Art-kino has designed numerous programmes aimed at stimulating children's creative participation in creating film content, valuing film art, and developing children's expression by engaging in various creative processes. Some of them are School at the Cinema, Travelling Film Workshops, Cinema Day, Tobogan Festival and VAFI & RAFI Festival, already established as unavoidable educational programmes in our city and beyond.

Moreover, a series of workshops such as animation, documentary and experimental film, video reporting, dubbing and others were designed and implemented at Art-kino, and conducted by established film authors – Martina Meštrović, Boris Poljak, Leon Lučev, Ivan Marušić Klif and others. Such activities will from now on be carried out at the technologically modern and unique Children’s House. 

Watching and creating films in the latest fashion 

The newly opened cinema, which is at Art-kino’s disposal, is equipped with the most modern technological equipment for image and sound reproduction, i.e. a laser 2k projector and a corresponding lens for 3D screenings as well as Dolby Atmos sound technology. The venue has 75 seats, and one of its special features is that it is adapted for people with hearing impairments. Apart from screening new films for families, children and youth that have been united at Art-kino as part of the Family Programme, it will also become a new destination for kindergarten and younger primary school students who participate in the School at the Cinema programme.

In addition to the cinema, Art-kino manages two filming and editing studios with high-quality and diverse technological equipment, that will enable the implementation of a number of workshop and educational programmes for children: from creation of feature and documentary films, TV reports and radio podcasts, to digital 2D and 3D animations and vlogs. The place of symbiotic screening and creation of films will certainly give rise to numerous new concepts.

By intensifying the existing programmes for children and youth, Art-kino intends to use them as a platform for creating new, primarily audiovisual content that will, through the top technical conditions offered by the Children's House, enable the implementation of numerous innovations in designing, organising and conducting workshops, all for the purpose of acquiring continuous habits of attending cultural events, and expressing ideas through numerous artistic and creative processes of young people.

What's on the programme?

From 27 March to 1 April, the Children's House’s doors are open for organised guided tours for interested citizens, and during that period Crni vuk, bijeli vuk by prominent Croatian author Ivana Guljašević Kuman will go down in the history as the first film screened at the big screen of a brand new cinema, together with French animated films The Atelier by Bianca Mansani and A lynx in the Town by Nina Bisiarina, screened in collaboration with the French Institute in Croatia, as well as inevitable adventures of Professor Balthazar in the episode Street Musicians (Ulični svirači) and short films by young filmmakers made at Art-kino workshops in recent years. 

A special film programme during the spring holidays, from 8 to 11 April, brings recent animated films: Oscar nominee from the Pixar studio – Soul, Oscar nominee from the Pixar studio, screened in 3D, a fantastic animated story The Bears' Famous Invasion of Sicily, the Danish animated adventure Dreambuilders and Disney's latest hit Ray and the Last Dragon.

Tickets are available at the Art-kino box office and online via ulaznice.hr.

More about the programme can be found on the official website of the Children's House.