Dimče is taking me to a two day seminar in Novi to learn how to make 8mm movies. It's in the elementary school downtown (actually quite near Danube, which I didn't know at the time). I don't remember where I slept, probably one of the kids from the school took me home (M.T.?). Learned to know several important people from Kino klub Novi and Foto kino savez Vojvodine, whom I will be seeing at the amateur film festivals in the following years. I do remember the school was much richer and nicer than ours - and ours was among the two new schools in town, with nothing you see being older than ten years, full of technical miracles I hadn't seen before - these guys had so much more. That's Novi for you.
We went through a full cycle, from how to hold the camera, how does it work, how does the tape transport through it, how to do the reversing development (i.e. get the positive straight out of the same tape, without having a negative), how to edit the tape, how to run a projection. Even the 120 degree, aka rule of the ramp, as to not to confuse the viewer with the directions in the virtual space.
Shot my first scenes on the fortress above the town, saw them developed and projected. Had about 90 seconds of my own shots, the other side of it (8mm was actually 16mm, with the perforations twice as frequent, and was shot one side first, then switch spools, shoot B side) went to the girl from 6th grade. She mostly doesn't reappear much in my life, as she dropped out of the activity soon. She reappeared later, studying at the same college as I, but I actually met her only once there.
This is when I met Melanija but didn't even think that she may want to talk with me. Didn't even merit a note in the diary. But next time we met, we recognized each other.
On 25th, I was still zigzagging, in my mind, between which girl to try my luck with - Tejka ("but she's laughing unnaturally, almost hysterically, she's depressive" and I forgot to say that she was always, always biting her fingernails, which never actually had a chance to grow), or Oli Boj, who "looks more natural, simpler (not a simpleton)".
Later in the month, my #1 tooth (bottom right) is supposed to get a gold crown. We even went somewhere across town to buy one gram of gold from someone. I chipped it once in the obdanište, when it was my first permanent tooth and so much longer than its neighbors. There was some horseplay at play, and at some point I landed with my jaw on someone's knee. I did feel a bit unnaturally warm there while eating soup, but didn't think much of it. When I got home it was noticed - I have lost the upper half of it. They took me to the dentist and I got some protective coating, which probably worked a few days. By then, I got used to it, the surrounding teeth grew on, and now, several years later, they meant to fix it.
Nothing of it. As I write this, I'm 70 and that tooth is as it always was. The gram of gold was forgotten first, then lost.
Congres of SKJ in Belgrade, no guests from eastern bloc. Party is now federalized and at the same time announced assault on nationalism, of which there were cases in Croatia already. In Prague 5000 people walk to our embassy, to spite the eastern bloc. Yoko Ono and John Lennon mary, he leaves Beatles. Czechoslovakia victorious over USSR in hokey, the celebration grows into spontaneous protests. Of course, we rooted for the Czechs wholeheartedly.
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* the word „footage“ is completely wrong, we measured the tape in cadres (from finger down to finger up on the trigger), or in seconds, or in minutes, or frames, anything but feet. But „cadres“ is not too well known in english.
26-IX-2015 - 16-VII-2026