THE RENAISSANCE OF PUBLISHING?

Anniversary, but critical general book

University of Zagreb — The Academy of Dramatic Arts: 1950-2000, 2004. Editors: Nikola Batušić, Nenad Puhovski and Vjeran Zuppa, Zagreb: Academy of Dramatic Arts, Centre for Dramatic Arts, Antibarbarus.

The monograph published on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the Academy of Dramatic Arts was a lucky outcome of an unfortunate editorial concept: instead of a formal, congratulatory monograph, the variety of articles and open form resulted in a critically coloured book. However, the book falls apart when it diverges into several paths of exposition which are reviewed only as a whole: historical and archive articles, transcripts of relevant theoretical texts, polemic interviews with people who witnessed the development of the Academy, and classical courteous interviews. The same approach was applied to theatre and film ’halves’ of the Academy. However, although richly illustrated and with over 500 pages, this book’s biggest problem lies in the inconsistent concept of list of films and students. These lists include all the students enrolled at the Academy since its founding, but not those who graduated, and the titles of all films that were made, but not of those that were made as students’

Tomislav Šakić