31.08.2018.

First release of videos promoting voluntary military service on the roof terrace of the Central Military Club

Tonight, on the refurbished roof terrace of the Central Military Club in Belgrade, videos within the voluntary military service promotion campaign entitled “Take a Step Forward” have been screened for the first time.

After more than two decades, the terrace of the Central Military Club, once renowned and very popular among the citizens of Belgrade as a “open-sky cinema”, has been opened again to the public, and on that occasion, the programme was enriched with films in black and white technique produced by the “Zastava film” Military Film Centre.

Tonight's projections were attended by Aleksandar Živković, state secretary in the Ministry of Defence, and Nenad Miloradović, assistant minister of defence for material resources as well as representatives of the Ministry of Defence and the Serbian Armed Forces and numerous regular visitors to cultural events in the Belgrade-based Central Military Club.

Stressing the importance of media promotion of voluntary military service, Aleksandar Živković, state secretary of the Ministry of Defence, greeted the gathered audience on behalf of Aleksandar Vulin, minister of defence, emphasizing that the videos entitled “Take a Step Forward” promote the advantages and values that young people can acquire when they join the Serbian Armed Forces.

- After three months of individual specialist training, they are referred to units where they master higher levels of training and carry out tasks within their units. It can be said that this also represents a certain type of socialisation of young people who, through collective spirit and common values, touch off their personality and strengthen it. Life and work in the armed forces takes place in a community, which is a value that we are continually developing. Time spent in the army is not a waste of time. It is a time when new knowledge, experiences, habits, values, and abilities through which the state strengthens its defence, are acquired. Therefore, with this media campaign we invite young people to apply for voluntary military service with arms and thus overcome new challenges in making Serbia safer and better - state secretary Živković emphasized.

Welcoming the gathered audience, many of whom were witnesses of the once much visited film premieres on the “roof of the JNA”, Commander Petar Bošković, head of the Public Relations Department of the Ministry of Defence, pointed out that the investment over the past decade in the refurbishment of the Central Military Club from ground floor to the roof – its galleries and depots, where nearly 2,000 valuable and unique paintings are stored, the premises where the Stanislav Binički Artistic Ensemble is located, and once favourite roof terrace and wall clock made in 1936, amounted to more than RSD 40 million.

- Efforts of the Ministry of Defence and the Public Relations Department to restore the former glory of the Central Military Club are continuing. This building, the former Wariors Club, was bestowed to us by our ancestors, famous warriors from the First and the Second World Wars, and in 1999, during the bombing of Serbia, it was one of the largest Media Centres where journalists from the country and the world could quickly learn the facts about the consequences of the aggression. This Club deserves a great respect of all of us, and I hope that this terrace, just as it was in the mid-1970s, will be to the pride of the Ministry of Defence and the Serbian Armed Forces, that premieres of the best films will be held here as it was once before and that the balls and cocktails will be organized on the occasion of the significant dates of the Serbian Armed Forces.

At the end of the evening, as an homage to the former open-air cinema, the following films of the “Zastava Film” Military Film Centre were screened in black and white: “Hygienic Habits of the Soldiers” and “Camouflage”, and then guests were entertained by members of the Chamber Orchestra of the Stanislav Binički Artistic Ensemble of the Ministry of Defence.