Noc před oslavou – Stanišić Saša (2016)

It is the night before a celebration somewhere in the countryside. Everyone is asleep. Except for the ferryman – he is dead. And the old painter, who decides to capture the village at night for the first time in her life. And the bell ringer, who heads to the church tower, where he discovers a small problem: the bells are gone. A fox is sneaking into the village, looking for eggs for her young, and racing through the night is a former lieutenant colonel of the people's army, under the mistaken hope that he will find more reasons to live than to smoke. Moreover, someone has broken into the municipal archive. Nothing has been lost, but rumors begin to spread through the village... Old stories, legends, and fairy tales gradually flow into the houses and seep into the dreams of the sleeping inhabitants. Thus, a novel of one long night is created, a mosaic of life in the village, where old-timers meet newcomers, the dead meet the living, and workers and retirees mingle with noble thieves in football jerseys. They all want to finish something on that one night before the celebration...