The Professional

In 2001, Teodor 'Teja' Kraj, a former literature professor turned publishing executive, plans a celebratory meal with his secretary Marta while his workers threaten to strike over privatization. He cynically dismisses the workers' demands and continues with personal plans. The tension between business and politics frames his day in Belgrade.

A strange man arrives with a briefcase and a large suitcase, insisting on speaking with Teja. He introduces himself as a writer and presents four books bound by his daughter, hinting that they contain classified information. Teja is intrigued but wary, and the visitor insists the books must be read.

The visitor finally reveals his identity: Luka Laban, a former State Security officer who has followed Teja for ten years. He explains that his daughter Ana compiled the four books listing Teja as the author, and that Ana is now married in Canada and wants nothing to do with her father. Luka hints at a larger motive tied to Teja's political activities.

The film recounts Luka observing Teja during the 9 March 1991 protests via a live camera feed. He even suggests staging a car accident to discredit Teja, but his superiors deny the plan. The moment establishes Luka's long-standing surveillance and the politics surrounding Teja.

In 1993, Luka, posing as a newspaper salesman, sits with Teja, Maki, and Gipsani at a kafana. Teja narrowly avoids a fight and begins to talk of killing himself. Luka tr commits to manipulating the moment, following Teja to the bathroom and nearly staging a suicide for him. The scene deepens Teja's sense of danger.

Luka reveals he was behind the wheel of a secret car accident in 1995 that left Teja with a limp. Two days after the Fall of Knin, Teja's anti-government protest is derailed; in the hospital, Luka, posing as a doctor, provokes Teja, and Teja bites Luka's ear before order is restored. The event cements their fraught history.

On New Year's Eve 1997, Ana gives Teja a set of binoculars, which Luka later retrieves. The moment signals Teja's personal life intersecting with Luka's surveillance and Ana's ongoing involvement. The discovery foreshadows the tangled web of relationships that follow.

Interrupting a protester’s interrogation during the 1996–97 protests, Luka spies on Teja and Ana at a strip club wearing a Santa Claus mask. The scene underscores Luka’s constant monitoring and Teja's precarious personal life entangled with political unrest.

At the strip club visit, Luka suffers a stroke and is hospitalized. There, he confesses to Ana that he has followed her relationship and her visa ambitions to Canada, and promises he would not murder Teja. The moment reveals the cost of decades of surveillance on all involved.

Luka continues to collect and forward Teja's lost items and photographs of Teja with Ana to Teja's university. As a result, Teja is expelled for sexual misconduct, Ana suffers a nervous breakdown and drops out, and Luka spirals into alcoholism. The consequences ripple through their lives.

During NATO bombing in 1999, Teja visits his ex-wife in a bomb shelter, bringing a toy dog he bought for his son. Luka has previously shown photographs of Teja with Ana to Ana's mother, prompting her to leave Teja. By then, Ana is married in Canada, distant from her father.

Back in the present, Marta witnesses Teja and Luka discuss how a murder could be framed as a suicide or crime of passion, and how State Security never truly reformed—only Luka was dismissed. Luka opens his suitcase, revealing lost items Teja has misplaced over ten years, and offers Ana's Canada number to Teja. In the director's cut, they are shown to be watched by State Security all along.