“I had doubts about relationships and faithfulness from an early age, because I felt at home that something is wrong. I couldn’t name it really because it was not spoken, but I felt that it’s not there what it should be,” Slovak docmaker Diana Fabiánová, director of the upcoming doc The Boundaries of Fidelity, explains how her approach to love and marriage was shaped.
Back in the Slovakia of the Soviet era her mother and father, a well-known psychologist, had an open marriage…or rather that was the way he saw it. Fabiánová describes it more as ‘one-way’ polygamy. “He had lovers and he asked her [his wife] to be in an open relationship, but it wasn’t really fair because the woman cannot do it. Only men did, it was not an open relationship.”
“It was a communistic time, so they were not free at all. So it was kind of a protest of themselves, to say, ‘No, I can do whatever I want to.’ But it was very uneven for women and men. It was only because they were part of the intellectuals, the artists and this kind of intellectual scene,” Fabiánová adds. “This was not at all the hippie revolution or feministic movement. It just happened because we were under the Russians and they didn’t allow it. So it was a special kind of group of people who could afford to do it, but still it was only men, not women.”
“So I didn’t really trust in marriage or long term relationships. I like to be functional and happy. And I tried from quite an early age to kind of experiment with relationships,” she continues.
But when Fabiánová was 23, her mother told her that she also had had an affair back then. “It was somebody who loved her. She felt pretty again and lovable again. She said it was a gift,” Fabiánová explains. But there was another twist. The man with whom her mother had fallen in love may also be Fabiánová’s real father…
When Fabiánová met her husband Denis, fell in love and became pregnant with their first child, she was determined that their life was not going to be one mired in secrecy, like that of her parents.
“I really wanted to keep the family together. So out of fear, I said, ‘Okay, let’s not pretend we will be the only person attracted to each other for 30 years. Let’s open it so we can say it aloud when we are attracted to someone else,’” Fabiánová explains. “And it will be not an issue. I never was really jealous if I felt that the person [with whom she was in love] loves me. So I thought I can cope with jealousy or things like that. So we started, and it took a time. It was a process. But at the end I think we really found the formula. It’s not easy. It’s not easier than monogamous relationships at all, but it suits better our nature.”
“Also because we are artists/freelancers we are used to living with no promises of security,” she laughs. “It’s difficult sometimes, but for me, at least it’s better because I don’t really believe inside that it could work otherwise.”
As the logline of the Docu Talents of the East project reads, she therefore embarks on “an intimate probe into society, partnerships, their dark places, and our innermost selves. It follows the decision to leave behind the generally accepted norms of couple cohabitation and to take a walk through the minefield of our emotions, fears, insecurities, and inner freedom.”
The 90-minute Slovak/Czech co-production is produced by Silvia Panáková of Dayhey, s.r.o. The expected date of delivery is Spring 2023.
Is Fabiánová in any way concerned about revealing some of the most intimate details of her life, and that of her family, in public? “Well, actually the biggest motivation were my children – my most important audience are my kids, actually,” she responds. “So I am trying to make it that it should be not hurting them, but I try to explain them that I don’t want them to repeat the same patterns as we did to get into infidelity, to cheat, not to be able to tell the truth. I want to be as transparent as possible with them. And they see every day that we [Fabiánová and Denis] love each other. Yeah, people tell me like, how can you do it to your kids? But they have affairs my friends, you know, secretly. And I think their kids feel as I felt.”
“I know that [my children] feel in the home that it’s a home where we love each other. So I think [honesty] is the most important thing you can
give to children,” Fabiánová ends.
Docu Talents from the East is curated and organised by the Ji.hlava IDFF. See: https://www.ji-hlava.com/docu-talents
