A Small Cinema from the other Side of the Alps: A Historical Overview of Slovenian Films

Slovenia is a young and small European country, which means that its films and film history are not very well known. The article surveys the major achievements of Slovenian cinema, arguing that it had proven itself with several notable successes even before the proclamation of Slovenia's independence from the former Yugoslavia in 1991. The gravest danger of contemporary Slovenian cinema is that it cannot draw enough international attention if it does not play along with stereotypical Western expectations of the region as either an irrational Other, or a troublesome EU border state.