The Czech ambassador to Serbia, Tomas Kuchta, said that the Czech company SEBRE intends to reconstruct the Avala Film studio complex and transform it into one of the leading film production hubs in Europe.
The project, which was given the status of Project of Outstanding Importance for the Republic of Serbia in 2019, entails not only the reconstruction of the film studio but also the construction of some 3,000 flats for 8,000 people.
SEBRE plans to modernise and transfer knowledge from other European film studios such as the Barrandov film studio in Prague. The goal is to produce new films here, as well as digitise old ones,’ Ambassador Kuchta said in an interview for Real Estate Magazine.
The complex spans over 40,000 square metres, and the plan is to completely modernise obsolete or non-functional buildings. To remind, back in 2020, environmental activists had a protest here, claiming that the construction of a residential complex on the film studio site will lead to the destruction of a segment of the Košutnjak forest.
The owner of Avala Film negated that and said that the construction would not take place in the forest area, which is a public good, but in a ‘neglected area’, where the film studios are currently located.
The Belgrade chief city planner Marko Stojčić said in September 2020 that there would be no cutting of trees in Košutnjak, and that the City Assembly had halted the development of the previous urban plan.
However, the Ne Davimo Beograd movement contradicted that statement and said that it got a letter from the Belgrade Urban Planning and Building Secretariat, stating that the regulatory plan for Košutnjak was still being developed, which entails deforestation.
(N1, 17.07.2022)
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