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At the beginning of the 1950s, an amateur cinema clubs network started developing in Yugoslavia. These cinema clubs soon became centres of experimental films production and development. In order to understand Yugoslav experimental film in a more comprehensive manner, the author of the paper analyses its institutional and production framework at the time and states a thesis about the organized cinema amateurism as an aspect of identity homogeniza- tion of the Yugoslav society. The paper also touches on the relationship between this branch of film making and professional cinema, the discourse presence of which formed the position and (self)awareness of amateur experimentalists to a large extent. The comparative model for the analysis of emancipation and market position of Yugoslav experimental film is the New York City based The Film-Maker’s Cooperative, serving as a model for the attempt to organize Yugoslav experimental film via the JUFIKO initiative (the Yugoslav Film Cooperative). Amateur experimental film is looked at through the optics of commercial activities in the socialist system, opening neo-avant-garde ideological questions and the questions about the discipline to which this film belongs – is it “art” or “film”. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]