Apart from the gladiator's fights in the Emperor Vespasian's amphitheatre, staged for entertainment but also “educational“ purposes, also sea battles, various gatherings, youth performances in form of mass gymnastics and many other kinds of performances were held. In 1953, at the initiative of the forward-looking Marijan Rotar also Yugoslav Feature Film Festival moved into Arena (Pula’s amphitheatre). Among the citizens of Pula the manifestation was immediately accepted and proved also encouraging in many aspects: leading Yugoslav film centres not only tried hard to increase the number of produced films but were also introducing the spectators in Arena into the event by preparing an explosion of advertising messages. One very broadminded author from Belgrade did not even hesitate in the period of increased liberty of expression, to send also (witty) messages very close to pornographic production.
Along with the continuous and heartily support of the public who never ceased to besiege Arena, the Festival was additionally raised to a higher level due to always higher quality and richer film production in all republics' centres. And when in Ljubljana the socially provocative film Ples na kiši (Dancing in the Rain ,1961) by Boštjan Hladnik was shot, which unambiguously warned that a highly praised socialist model had well worn out, also other centres of the federation “woke up“: there appeared Serbian black wave movies (Pavlović, Makavejev, Đorđević, Petrović), Croatian intimist films (Golik, Bauer, Mimica, Berković, Papić, Babaja…), Slovenian genre-films (Čap, Štiglic, Godina), and there were individual achievements by talented authors from Sarajevo and Skopje.
The naissance of the quality Yugoslav film attracted to Pula many film experts from Europe and the world. Many of them did not spare compliments and the fame spread of the freshness and impressiveness of the bitter artistic messages sent from those parts of the world.
The number of national films “tested“ in Pula and later shown at many world festivals, among whom also those of A category (Venice, Berlin, Cannes…) is not small. There followed tours everywhere, even over Atlantic, of the Yugoslav Film Weeks (Tjedana jugoslavenskog filma).
With the establishment of the independent Croatian state there appeared immediately a question: can a modest Croatian yearly film production be sufficiently solid basis for the survival of the Pula Film Festival? After initial wandering it seems that an acceptable formula was discovered. The Festival would - even more than before – be the initiator of a more ample feature film production and the selection of foreign, already proven new films ( prevailingly of artistic character) will add excitement and attractiveness to it. In one time period the Festival was enriched also by very interesting program of restored classic Croatian movies. Why something of the kind would not continue?
It seems that this decade of the Pula Film Festival will be marked by numerous young authors some of whom have – more of them due to their energy than to the sufficient budget - already succeeded in realising their projects while others are preparing to do so.
