Ladislav Šidelský

“Once when I came to the East, I wanted to show everybody how it actually looks like. It is beautiful surroundings, lovely countryside, nice people... just perfect for filming a documentary. This is what we did. We wanted the whole Czechoslovakia, not only Slovakia, but Czechoslovakia to see, that the Eastern Slovakia has its own great values, either in people, in its nature, in anything, as well as in the dialect. Sometimes it might seem rather jocular, but the Eastern Slovakia is always beautiful. And I came here from Bratislava not because I was born here. It just happened to be that way and I do not regret it at all until present.”

“The issue was how to get there... Because when we arrived in Biel, what is a little village ahead of Čierna nad Tisou, there were already many policemen. Every 200 meters was a policeman searching whether someone carried something or not. If they saw a camera, and there were many cameramen present also from the West, they sent them away and were unable to get closer. I was quite known by wearing suit and a tie, and so I made up my mind that I would put a little camera on my tie. Even it was a little striking in such very hot weather, I wore my jacket. I hang my little camera on my arm, buttoned the jacket and went through the inspection. Nobody noticed I had my camera with me.”

“I managed to get with my camera directly to the station. Since we used to go there quite often, we had there some acquaintance officers. When I tried to find a place of the train´s arrival, the officers told me where the delegation was supposed to get off. But it was forbidden to film it. Finally, however, one of them told me a great thing, but I don´t remember his name anymore and I would not recognize him for sure. He said: ʻIf you want, come to this room and through the grids you can film as they arrive, as they are walking and if you walk from one window to another, you shall see how they move to the meeting room,ʼ which was in Čierna nad Tisou. More or less, I managed to do all of this. The funny thing was that if I was going to film that while having only 35 seconds available, I would probably turn on the camera too soon, or too late and not film anything, and the delegation would have left by that time. So the dilemma was how to do it. Luckily, the deux et machina appeared and I began filming exactly when they were there, presided by Brezhnev, Dubček, and Biľak.”