I eyeballed the date. This could have been anytime in june, somehow fitting in with my exams schedule. There was some gathering of fraternal cities, one of those organized to get the folks know and befriend each other across the whole SFRY, so each republic and province had one city in it - from Slovenia I guess it was Maribor, from Kosovo and Metohija Peć or Mitrovica, from Macedonia fuck me if I remember, Ohrid or Kičevo etc.
The city wasn't stingy with cash, so there was some for DC-99 - our job was to record how that looked. The programme consisted mostly of a tour of industry, so the guest split into teams, and I joined those who went to the brewery. We shot a good sequence there in 1971. and I remember quite well how great those huge copper kettles looked, and how it was a pity that we didn't have color tape then. Well, I had color now, although not 16mm, just a super 8, and the club already had a proper camera for it (no sound, though, fuckit). I packed up the gear, drew myself when and where I should, and neatly recorded what I should. Too bad the light in the catacombs was really minimal, I guess they keep it that way to dissuade the curious from rambling in.
The catacombs are some tunnels, drilled who knows when and why, and the temperature there is permanently +4 (or +15, which is the temperature of water in soil, from well or pipes), and they reach beneath the riverbed. A miracle unseen, I think at least 90% of people in town have no idea that these tunnels exist, they tell this only to guests when they take them down to see. Possibly even the majority of their workers doesn't know about it, or at least never went in.
After the tour was finished, of course there was a big lunch for all, in the meeting hall, in the baraka* in the front of the yard, which serves as management offices. I just finished off the last seconds of the tape, and put my gear at the very end of the long table to pack it. When you're the cameraman, you don't take part in the event, you're an observer, pretty much air, and you don't even try to get a better seat, just park yourself at the farthest edge. Which comes handy if you mean to sneak out before the end...
After the director, the chief engineer, a beer technolog, went on talking about the rich history of the brewery (that it started working as earlly as 1745, good 25 years before the Guinnes's), elegantly skipping mr Dunđerski who made it, and then went on to the subject of beer. While beer does contain some alcohol, it's still a complete meal in itself, containing lots of proteins, minerals, vitamins... and finished with the punchline, about „some studies claim that it supports growth of hair and beard“. At that moment some forty faces turn my way, as my hair and beard were at, I'd say, historical maximum. I didn't cut the hair since graduation, and trimmed the beard perhaps at three months intervals... Don't know what they thought, how much beer I must be drinking.
When their attention turned back to the story, I finished packing and quietly vanished from there. Our lunch is around half three, and this was barely past noon, no, thanks.
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* baraka is literally the same word as barrack, which doesn't have a singular in english. And the meaning is different too - it's not military at all, it's just a (semi-derogatory) term meaning „wooden house“, something made as a temporary building, not of solid material.
6-VI-2025 - 6-VI-2025