For decades, the rich experimental/avant-garde film heritage of the Socialist Republic of Slovenia (1945-1991) has remained overlooked at home and abroad. Finally visible today, these films prove that the metropoles of the West were not the only hubs of innovative cinema.

Between 2013 and 2023, Slovenian Cinematheque preserved and digitized 179 short films created on a tiny stretch of land between the Alps and the Adriatic Sea in the period of socialism (1945-1991), but mostly outside the prevailing state production. Today, we belatedly recognize these films as experimental and as an important, innovative part of the Slovenian film heritage, visible again for the first time after decades. The production of Alpe-Adria Underground! has radically accelerated efforts to preserve, digitize and restore this segment of Slovenian cinema.