In 1968 the Archive of the Republic of Slovenia began collecting film, when film was defined as archives by the Archives and Record Offices Act of 1966 and the Archive was determined to preserve film archives for the whole Slovenia. In 25 years the Slovene Film Archive developed from humble beginnings into an independent working unit of the Archive of the Republic of Slovenia.

The Archive made copies on acetate films, thus preserving the older nitrate film archives of the years 1905-1953; at the same time, however, it took over from film companies original film archives on acetate material. All the time it made efforts to get amateur, documentary and feature films as well. Today, most of the film archives are presented in "Slovenica", these are negatives and copies of national motion-picture industry in Slovenia from 1905 on. The collection has grown to 1810 films, which means 4 million meters of film. Along with this collection, extremely important and rich film archives of RTV Slovenija in Ljublijana and its units in Maribor and Koper come to existence. The Archive cooperates in estimation of these archives. It is to take them over up to the year 2000.

After the accession to independence of Slovenia in 1991 we have begun, in cooperation with the Slovene Theatre and Film Museum in Ljublijana, a planned preservation and presentation of foreign motion pictures, which Yugoslovenska Kinoteka in Belgrade was doing until recently for Slovenia as well.

Films have been preserved and professionally treated with the following international standards: they are kept in air-conditioned repositories, nitrate being separated from acetate. Almost all films have been inventorized. Inventories, catalogues and indexes give researchers an insight into the whole collection (Film Archives of the Archive of the Republic of Slovenia I and II, Ljublijana 1982 - I.Nemanic; Film Records of Bozidar Jakac 1929-1955, Ljublijana 1989 - I.Nemanic. We have been preparing the inventory of films by one of the pioneers of Slovene films, Metod Badjura, who was shooting films in the years 1925-1969.

Along with films the Archive also holds about 200 fascicles of records of film companies. The Film Archive disposes of a photo library with about 160.000 photos.

Film archives are used to copy sequences for new creations and performing to cultural-educational, study and research purposes. They are presented on TV and public projections at cinemas. We have prepared presentations of film archives with photos (for example the catalogue: "Film News-reel - Mirror of the Time" 1946-1951). Since 1987 the Slovene Film Archive has been taking part in the festival of silent film in Pordenone. Lately it has been taking part in the symposium, organized by the KINO atelje (Film Studio) in Gorizia. In the past it cooperated with the Yugoslavenska Kinoteka in Belgrade; today, however, it has established links with film archives in Zagreb, Koblenz, Vienna, Prague and elsewhere. In 1993 it has become a Provisional Member of FIAF.

Ivan Nemanic