Live in New York

New York; always full of surprises. The meeting place of many Montenegrins since the 1993th century. Everyone brings something here and leaves it there. Everyone brings that nugget of their country... Then, those colors, races, suddenly merge. Well, this summer too: XNUMX.

- In the beginning, your color relationships are drastic, but over time it fades - the famous Montenegrin director, Živko Nikolić, tells me. - It would be good if they would understand it for me there. Because here people gather around work, around life, and not around ideology... And, by God, winter is terrible in New York. Last winter, I wore everything I had, and, again, it doesn't help... It's in New York thanks to the charity of Dr. Dušan Kosović.

- Dr. Kosović is a high-ranking psychiatrist, extremely respected here, his office is always full of those who seek help from him - says Nikolić. - He obviously knows how to help people. In his book on the problem of stress with great wisdom, authority, and experience, he finds very convincing and valuable explanations for this disease of this age. Thus, that reading, which offers the possibility to make a valid documentary film, would mostly be addressed to the stress of those people who come here and try to put down roots on the hard and hot American asphalt.

At a major crossroads

And: where did Živko Nikolić come from in New York?

- Perhaps it is true that all emigrant stories have been told, all emigrant solitudes have been sung, all longings for the homeland have been mourned. But, again, every tear is anew, like the first time, every pain is from the beginning - emphasizes Živko. - Every trip abroad, of course, has its own story. Mine is simple. Simply, for three or four years I did almost nothing there, I was rejected by the Serbian Cultural Association for the project I offered. So I felt redundant there and looked for more happiness here, in this space, where, well, now we should start from the beginning. I say, from the beginning, because the cinematography here is completely different, the world is different, the films are sought after different from the ones I made there. Here, first of all, I don't have Montenegro, and that was my thematic commitment...

I remind Živko that, by all accounts, he is at a major crossroads.

- I am at a really big crossroads. It is obvious that I can no longer nurture my authentic world, and I can hardly accept what the local market is looking for, because it is not easy to do anything here outside of the market's requirements - says the famous director. - Here, the real and basic measure of the weight of a film is how many people you squeeze into the cinema, that is, how many dollars are collected at the box office. Some kind of art, few are interested in that.

Many film "bosses" simply wonder what it is when you mention film art to them. Now I'm trying, thinking about it, to make a film that would reconcile the sheep and the wolves. We'll see what will come of it. A great temptation. Americans know little about our cinematography, in fact, they know little about European film. It's a real rarity that a European film is shown in an even better cinema. The distributors who own the theaters save it for their films. You can even find a good American film that cannot enter the "real" cinema, because its distributor is not strong enough. Here is a dangerous fight for space, for the audience, for money, clearly. A lot of movies are made in America every year. These are mostly films that meet commercial requirements. Sometimes it gets carried away and that's an event.

Oh God, where am I this…

We are sitting at the restaurant La Maganette, on the corner of Third Avenue and Fifty Street, our pleasant meeting place.

- My peace is in work. If I don't work, then I don't have peace. In addition, a man who is tied to his homeland, where miracles happen, can hardly find peace, anywhere on the globe. Because we carry restlessness with us - says Živko. - Here we, who came from a bloodied homeland, can no longer talk about anything other than what is happening there, what can happen, who is where, who is with whom, who is for whom. Newspapers are read, TV is watched, what is between the lines is searched for, witch doctors are invoked, cards are looked at...

Živko tells me that in New York he feels like Duke Drasko in Venice!

- Every contact with something new, unknown until then, triggers motives in a person that can, of course, be of some kind of creative use. But such benefits come at a price. In addition, I feel a bit confused here and sometimes it seems to me that I knew more about America until I saw it - says Nikolić. - Which way, I'm walking through New York and I ask myself: Oh, God, where am I?! Where am I going? Where do I come from? What am I doing here? America, America! He gives easily, he punishes easily. Everything is possible here. Sometimes it seems to me that it is the land of dreamers who came here to look for what they didn't have. Once, again, that it was the land of commoners who came to steal and leave. Many houses are made of boards, their doors have a thousand locks, the fences are high, the dogs are huge, dangerous, well fed. My friend Chedo from Los Angeles kicked the dog that ate his lunch. The woman, whose dog it was, called the police, pounced on the unfortunate man to beat him, cursed him and demanded that he apologize to the dog! America is a country of people who came here temporarily, and most often stay forever. A few lucky ones manage to get away from all that and arrive in their homeland in time to at least have a nice burial there, as befits a man. Here are funerals without mourners and mourners. They put the man in a rubber bag as a sleeping bag, tie him up and wait for a while for someone to call and bury him. If no one comes forward, the people designated for that will shut him down, and no one knows where that unfortunate man ended up. His bones are lost forever. The fear of that is great among our people here. That's why many of our people, when they get old, feel the end, so they come to the old area to rest there. To rest, by God, and from the stories of miracles and wonders, about gold mines, to rest from that fear that their bones will not be left in Long Beach, or in Santa Monica, Miami or Florida...

Cobbler and shoes

New York summer. We walked to Rockefeller Center. My friend, Bajram Vukelj, from Gusinja, takes a few shots.

- I know less about myself in this big and complex world than ever. A man doesn't know himself enough until he moves out of his space - says Živko - but, again, I don't know much about myself in this world. I'm here, though, for a little while. A year and a half. A little or a lot, maybe we will know later.

And: from here, from Manhattan, a view of the homeland. - When you see these people who live in America, of different colors, different nations and nationalities, and thus live very tolerantly, finding a reason to be together, then it's simply astonishing in our country. Well, we are no less wise than them to not understand that it is healthy to unite around the crust of bread, and not around some abstract ideas and vague ideologies. But I'm not an expert in structuring society and I wouldn't want to make the mistake of talking about something I really don't know - emphasizes the famous Montenegrin film director Živko Nikolić. - The problem, it seems to me, is that those who really know nothing about politics are also involved in politics. And one needs to know a lot in order to think in a political way. It is not enough that someone knows his art or his economy or his law well, or that he is a good poet, so that he can be an expert in everything. A shoemaker should not go beyond shoes yet...

Roaring New York; in Times Square.