After the little controversy over our movie, Baja and I were invited to Television Novi, to have a chat with Želimir Žilnik. This came as some surprise, we thought the whole thing was already forgotten. Don't really remember whether I took dad's car, or we took a bus (he surely didn't have a car then). We got there in a quiet, cloudy, wet and misty morning, probably between ten and eleven, and were shown where to find him.
Žilnik was, and still is, a legend. Not as much an enfant terrible, more just one of the culture workers from the sixties, who were pushing the envelope of the system until it burst at the seams. Some of his movies were censored, some forbidden, and yet we find him as a program director of something on the province TV.
We sat in the cafeteria for an hour or two, were given a brief tour of the studio, talked about how we made the movie, what were the circumstances of the critique that appeared, how it all turned out, and that was about it. Neither of us made any movies after this (maybe not even Žilnik, can't be sure)(update: Žilnik sure did).
Some time in the previous week we were engaged. We went with my [parents] to Belgrade, bought her a nice engagement ring, and the wedding rings, which we wore on the left ring finger while engaged; they are moved to the right hand during the wedding. That's when our folks finally met and I had to pay close attention for the case if dad would blurt something, and Oma likewise, and okay it all passed well, and I could sigh out my relief.
Of course, I drove and they drank.
5-II-2018 - 31-X-2025