The first two decades of the twenty-first century saw a number of articles, monographs, studies, exhibitions and DVDs dedicated to the Yugoslav experimental cinema, a film practice inextricably linked to the cinéclub culture and the organized amateur cinema scene. Whilst these scholarly and non-scholarly works differ in their theoretical and interpretive approaches, they raise a myriad of questions, revealing the numerous lacunae in the knowledge about this parallel cinema; lacunae this dissertation seeks to fill. Bearing in mind that experimental cinema does not figure prominently in the (post)Yugoslav film studies, film criticism or film theory, the mandatory introduction on the existing sources of our knowledge of the subject is followed by a chapter devoted to clarifying the basic concepts of this particular mode of film practice in the Yugoslav context. Therefore, the second chapter opens with one of the most pertinent questions in regard to Yugoslav cinema and in particular, its designation as Yugoslav: the idea of a single cinema unified under that supranational identitary term. The decision to unify and classify the existing body of films as Yugoslav is corroborated by an overview of both historical and contemporary film and art historical debates and reflections on the subject, as well as by the experimental cinematic experiences shared by the filmmakers in Yugoslavia. The same chapter deals with the history of experimental cinema and the invisibility of Yugoslav experimental cinema and examines this film practice as belonging both to the history of cinema as well as the history of visual arts. This fact has likely contributed to its marginalization and invisibility, additionally complicated by the filmmaker’s amateur position in the Yugoslav context. Furthermore, this position has caused a number of other omissions, misunderstandings and oversights, especially when it comes to the women's experimental cinema. Although women did not figure prominently in this field during the 1960s and 1970s, there was a number of remarkable women experimentalists who failed to find their (historical) place in the fragile and provisory canon of Yugoslav experimental cinema, as put forth by the existing literature. For that reason, one of the aims of this dissertation was to seamlessly weave their work back into this field, by looking at the reasons for their exclusion, especially in a society which declaratively proclaimed their equality. Concluding subchapters are devoted to the existing typologies of experimental cinema which could be adequately applied to the films from the Yugoslav context. The typologies used are the ones proposed by Malcolm Le Grice, Nicole Brenez, Amos Vogel, P. Adams Sitney and Hrvoje Turković, complemented by a short overview of various terms used for designating this film practice, which I named "floating categories". The third chapter is dedicated entirely to the manifold facets of experimental cinema in the Yugoslav context, which are relevant for understanding its cultural and ideological position as an independent film practice. Starting with a brief analysis of the rebellious and avant-garde position of experimental cinema within the (contradictory) Yugoslav society of the 1960s and 1970s, and the intricate question of representation of "reality" in cinema – relevant for the subsequent backlash on the so called Black wave cinema in the early 1970s – I proceed with the discussion about the development of experimentalism within its institutional context. The evolution of amateur cinema is scrutinised in parallel with the development of official professional cinema, and the ciné-clubs themselves are discussed under the purview of the Yugoslav organization for technical culture Narodna tehnika (The People's Technics), an organization of and for amateur hobbyists which provided an institutional framework for the birth of experimental cinema. In this subchapter I raise several issues that are important for understanding the ideological position of this oppositional film practice in a socialist society as well as its connection to the Western models of experimental film production and distribution: the questions of individual ciné-club initiatives and independent film studios, and the idea of ciné-clubs functioning as film-makers' cooperatives on the free (socialist) market. The amateur institutional position, nevertheless, caused the instrumentalisation of this film genre and its constant subjugation to the official, professional cinematography, exiling it in the position of permanent in-betweenness and making it difficult for experimental cinema in the Yugoslav context to fully emancipate itself. One of the strategies of Yugoslav experimentalists for navigating both the amateur and the professional context consisted in hijacking the already existing network of amateur festivals organized by the local, federal and republic ciné-associations, and establishing their own festivals which would feature only – or predominantly – experimental films. Four of these festivals are analyzed in the following subchapters – GEFF (1963-1970), MAFAF (1965-1990), Sabor alternativnog filma (1977-1987) and IF STAF (1970-1974). Besides serving as homogenizing events for the multinational Yugoslav (film) community, these festivals also played a key role in the development of Yugoslav experimental film theory. Last part of the third chapter consequently provides a more in-depth view of the dominant experimental/amateur film schools, as articulated precisely in the (experimental) film festival circle – the Zagreb film school, the Belgrade film school and the Split film school. The particular poetics of these schools are analyzed in relation to the particular theories which developed alongside them – the fixation film and antifilm (Zagreb), alternative film (Belgrade) and filmic cardiogram (Split). In the focus of the final two chapters are the interpretations and analyses of selected films . Introductory remarks to the fourth chapter summarize the existing general overviews of Yugoslav experimental cinema: the linear differentiation between particular periods followed by stylistic and poetic examinations (Turković, Obad), the classificatory approach focused on particular filmic procedures (Milošević, Turković) and the differentiation of authors, films and styles according to the particular paradigmatic principles (Vuković). For the purposes of a clearer overview of the films analyzed in these chapters, I decided to divide them into four major areas of research, which I named the content/image, the film language, the cinematic dispositif and the cinema as a mode of transcending the moving image. These areas of research are further fragmented into smaller interpretive and significatory units which correspond to different approaches in the construction of meaning, explorations of particular aspects of the film medium, particular modes of interaction with the camera and the film language, or specific attempts at conveying particular ideas by means of cinema. The above-mentioned fields of research and their representative filmmakers are: political film and the societal critique (Dušan Makavejev, Marko Babac, Želimir Žilnik, Vinko Rozman, Kokan Rakonjac), home movies and diary films (Vukica Đilas, Dragiša Krstić, Biljana Belić), meanings behind textures (Tatjana Ivančić, Ante Verzotti), structures and durations (Tomislav Gotovac, Bojana Vujanović), editing and narration (Ivan Martinac), cinematic tableaux of Karpo Godina, materiality of the film strip (Zlatko Hajdler, Vladimir Petek, Ante Verzotti, Sava Trifković, Nikola Đurić), camera-body (Ante Verzotti, Nikola Đurić, Mihovil Pansini), the text-image (OHO/Naško Križnar, Mladen Stilinović, Ljubiša Grlić), performance for the camera (Ivo Lukas, Tomislav Gotovac, Radoslav Vladić, Karpo Godina, Ante Verzotti, Nuša Dragan), and expanded cinema (Tomislav Kobia, Nikola Đurić, Ivo Lukas, Milenko Jovanović and Miša Avramović). Other films that are mentioned within the course of the analysis, might also serve as equally good examples of the listed procedures. The thesis ends with chapter six serving as the proverbial conclusion, wherein I stress the fact that each freely chosen doctoral dissertation eventually represents an intellectual imprint of personal obsessions, interests and pursuits. All the omissions, mischosen examples, over-accentuated historical, cultural or theoretical questions contribute in part to building a small discursive arena which I felt necessary to enter in order to fully understand the exciting field of Yugoslav experimental cinema.