OPERATION, RE-ENACTMENT, RECONSTRUCTION Here is a reconstruction model: Zagreb, early May 1945. German and ustasha troops are retreating from the city. Several filmmakers, mostly pioneers of Croatian film, participate in the action of saving the filming equipment and material, which the occupation forces intend to take with them. A part of the equipment has been transported from the former building of state production into private homes, but it is impossible to hide everything. Therefore, the cameramen have grhistoriabbed the cameras and come out into the streets, filming the retreat of German and ustasha convoy from Zagreb. In order to avoid suspicion, they camouflage some of the cameras behind the windowpanes or behave as if they were fleeing themselves. Sometimes they even ask the retreating soldiers to help them transport the equipment to a filming location. The whole action is coordinated by film director Branko Marjanović, who is based in the city centre and plans the locations. On 8 May, the partisan forces enter the city, but the filming goes on. Mistrustful partisans occasionally stop civilians carrying cameras, but the cameramen tell them the predefined password: “Florijan knows everything!” Even though Florijan does not exist and the cameramen have invented the password, a name behind the action helps regulate the situation. The cameramen are left alone. In this way, a historical document is created that is known in present-day literature as the “Liberation of Zagreb.” 1 So what is there to be reconstructed? Everything has been filmed, documented; the object of cameraman’s attention is permanently available, evidencing the fact of a rupture, a revolution, an “event” of truth (Badiou), a breakthrough from the situation, from the way things are. The film, same as the con password naming some Florijan, resituates and names the event, de- constituting the community in decline and establishing another on the rise. Still, the story narrated above is indispensable for the “truthfulness” of the filmed material. The film is apparently neutral, void of all action. The main difference between the shots made before 8 May 1945 and the later ones is the fact that the documents about the retreat of troops from Zagreb are voyeur-like, filmed from behind the windowpanes, clandestinely or with great caution: they have been made by cameramen with a mission. The shots of partisans entering the city indicate uncertainty, but also show the enthusiasm of the cameramen, their camera running with the momentum, the filming operation having become an action. The shots were presented in the first issue of Filmske novosti, a cinema journal created by our 1 Cf. Ivo Škrabalo: Između publike i države [Between the Public and the State], Zagreb: Znanje, 1984, p. 109.