Slobodan Maričić and Tijana Dušej Ristev
BBC journalists
"Whose is it, is it ours?", a slightly worried father, surrounded by his wife and mother, asks his son over a video call who has just told them that his girlfriend is pregnant.
And in faraway London.
"Ours is... Relatively," the young man replies.
He wrings his hands, wipes away the sweat, and in the end somehow manages to say "she's Croatian," to which his father, a minister in the Serbian government, played by Dragan Bjelogrlić, grabs his head.
They didn't react any better in Zagreb either.
"A Serb?" her grandmother exclaimed and fainted.
So it begins. Wedding, a film written and directed by Igor Šeregi, which has been filling theaters and cinemas in recent weeks.
It first began showing in Croatia, where it has been seen by more than 400.000 people so far, the production announced, making it the most-watched Croatian film of all time.
In Serbia, it reached around 130.000 viewers, according to official data.
It is slowly reaching other countries of the former Yugoslavia, with several premieres intended for the diaspora.
Šeregi is already announcing the filming of a sequel.
And during that time, we talked about the film, but also about their lives and loves - in a world of frequent political and various other tensions and conflicts - with real Serbo-Croatian couples.
Do they live some kind of movie life?
Senka and Gordan
"We couldn't wait for the movie," is the first thing 37-year-old Senka Turković tells me.
"The topic is very familiar to us," he adds with a smile.
She was born in Zaječar, then lived in Belgrade for more than a decade after her studies, and then moved to Zagreb with her husband Gordan, who is from Split.
They recently had a son.
"We laughed, the film plays with stereotypes in a humorous way and talks about people who are seemingly different, but in fact very similar, so we were satisfied," says Turković.
"I remembered our wedding, which was also at sea, and the sense of anticipation and joy that was present for all the new things ahead."
Did they perhaps find each other in some scenes, no matter how caricatured they may be?
"There are similarities," Turković replies.
"We had the wedding in Split and it was very demanding in terms of organization - my family came from Zaječar, Belgrade, from all over, some were staying with his relatives...
"It was a week-long gathering."
They both knew, he continues, that everything would be fine, but there were also comical situations where the two sides of the family didn't understand each other very well.
"There was no competition between fathers like in Weddings", states.
"My parents met Gordan when we were friends, years before we started dating, and everyone supported me, especially my sister."
"And the Gordans were happy too, they are wonderful and open people."
One of the logistical problems in the film, which reflected numerous other tensions, was the issue of music.
This is, whose The music will play.
"Music was an issue for us too," recalls Turković.
"A Croatian band was playing, both pop and rock - both Croatian and Serbian - but it was indicated which songs they were not allowed to play, so Gordan and I were teased by our friends that they were going to order them, which was pretty funny."
The two met by chance in Belgrade.
She liked him at first sight, which had never happened to her before, she points out.
"He's a Mediterranean type, open, different, I liked that... My mom even told me 'he's just exotic'."
They hung out as friends for a few weeks, then stayed in touch and saw each other when he came to Serbia and she to Croatia.
After five years, they started a relationship, first long-distance for two years, but then the question arose of where they would live - in Belgrade or Zagreb.
They decided on the Croatian capital because of his job.
Was that difficult for her, I ask her.
"Yes, very much," he replies shortly.
"I moved during the coronavirus pandemic, we couldn't travel, all my friends stayed in Belgrade and Zaječar, and I had no one in Zagreb except him."
However, she points out, everyone was very nice and open to her and she didn't have any problems, even though some warned her "how you're going to get to Croatia."
"The language is almost the same, the people are very similar, it's all the same, we're all tired of the politics of separation, conflict and negative messages about our neighbors."
"So I've been here for seven years... Now there are three of us," he concludes with a smile.
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Ivan and Dalibor
The relationship between Ivan Zidarević from Belgrade and his partner Dalibor, who is from Zagreb, can be said to be historical.
They entered into their first life partnership in Croatia in 2014.
"And one Serb and one Croat," Zidarevic tells the BBC in Serbian.
"My friends all say he's my husband, but legally it's not a marriage, he's my life partner."
The Law on Life Partnership in Croatia was passed in 2014 - Serbia still does not have one - and it was preceded by a referendum on the constitutional definition of marriage.
It was then defined as the union of a man and a woman.
Maybe Ivan and Dalibor are not legally married, but there was a celebration - it was called a wedding, a wedding reception, or a party.
"When we booked the restaurant, we didn't say what the occasion was."
"And finally we get there, the party was for about 40 people, we arrived, then some straight couples, then gay couples, and the owner and the waiters noticed that something was off.
"We approached the owner, told him that our partnership would be there, and he said, 'You are that gay marriage,'" recalls Zidarevic.
Everything went well, he points out.
"Around five in the morning, the owner approached Dalibor, gave him a bottle of fino and said, 'If you get married again, you'll get it for free.'"
That was Saturday, and on Monday he went to submit his residence documents and get ID card, or an ID card for temporary residence.
"I hand over the document at the counter, it says extract from the book of life partnerships, number 0001, and I keep thinking, 'Oh, what are they going to tell me now?'" says Zidarevic.
"The woman motions for me to get down so I can hear her: 'Are you first?' she says to me.
"'Yes,' I answer, still waiting to hear what this all means."
"And she just said, 'Congratulations.'"
He met his partner in 2012 and they initially had a long-distance relationship.
Today they live in Zagreb, but if they couldn't register, they would have gone to a third country.
He received Croatian citizenship in 2020 and "integrated into Croatian society," but he often comes to Belgrade with Dalibor.
"I took him to Šumadija, we were in Topola, Aranđelovac, Oplenac, so everything works."
"While you and I are talking, hundreds of people are crossing the Bajakovo - Batrovci crossing, on the border of Croatia and Serbia, loving each other, traveling, functioning, working."
Although he points out that as a gay Serb in Zagreb he had no problems, apart from some comments on the internet, he is aware that there are negative experiences of people and that work needs to be done to combat this, he points out.
The wedding he hasn't watched yet.
He says he's waiting for the audience to 'go away a bit'.
Ivica and Dragana
Ivica Propadalo and Dragana Todorović Propadalo, from Čačak, have been together for 15 years and married for nine.
They live between Zagreb and Istria, dividing their lives between travel, art, and everyday life, which, they both say, is based on understanding and tolerance.
They watched a film together, which they say is "special and funny," and they were pleased that it was a work that was not based on war and tragic themes.
Ivica believes that the authors managed to portray two peoples who are different in many ways, but share the same sense of humor.
"There was caricature, glorification and exaggeration - elements necessary for artistic freedom of expression, but this is a justified dose of positive kitsch," the Livno-born electrical engineer, painter, set designer and musician tells BBC Serbian.
His parents, Antonija and Marko, taught him to respect all differences - religious, national, and personal - and in their family they have always been a part of life, he points out.
His late grandmother Jovanka was Serbian.
"If my grandfather Tomi didn't mind it 150 years ago, why should I today," he says with a smile.
"Dragana and I were together for four years when we went through a difficult tragedy, but not all tragedies are sad - ours ended in a happy marriage."
When asked if they recognized themselves in some lines or situations from the film, Ivica honestly answers - not completely.
However, he is especially happy to recount the meeting with Dragana's parents in Čačak.
They knew almost nothing about him - not that he was Croat, Catholic, divorced, or that he was 28 years older than their daughter.
He planned to bring monographs and the band's CD. Teška industrija in which he plays, but Dragana answered him, so that his age wouldn't be revealed too early.
Instead, he only brought Livno cheese.
"After a few shots of brandy, my tongue stopped responding," says Ivica.
When Dragana's father asked if this was his first time in Čačak, he replied: "No way, I played here back in 1972 with the band Smak."
The silence at the table said it all.
It was clear that as a five-year-old, he couldn't play.
The years are revealed, but without drama.
"Today I can proudly say that Dara and Tomo (my father-in-law and mother-in-law) are only a year younger than me and that we get along great," he adds.
Dragana jokes that she chose her husband so that there was no generation gap between him and her parents.
He met his wife in 2011 in Belgrade, through mutual friends, at a concert and album promotion. We were in paradise. bandage Teška industrija at the Youth Center.
"The rest is history," he says.
They got married in 2017 in Zagreb, at the Mimara Museum.
Their first dance was sung by the famous Croatian artist Tereza Kesovija, along with numerous musical friends from the region.
The wedding was followed by congratulations from Serbian and Croatian media.
Ivica remembers one comment in particular: "My Perdition, you could have saved one of ours."
Dragana often expresses their love in verses:
"There are no borders, distances, hills and mountains, there are no years - they are just numbers."
"There is no yours and mine, when love is true, it destroys everything in its path."
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