He is the owner of the bus, but he is also a pig merchant and a sort of con man. Towards the beginning of the film, he loads several pigs onto the back of the bus, despite the obvious disgust of the passengers. "When I sell the pigs in Belgrade, I'll earn more money than your tickets brought me", he says. He is also quick to criticize and throw people off his bus, but only after they have paid the ticket. His character evolves from a stereotypical grouch (although non-malevolent) at the beginning of the movie, to a loving, caring father towards the film's end. In the peeping scene, when Krstic Jr. says: "Dad, I would like to do this too", he, gaping at the young couple exhilarates: "Dad would as well, son" - a sentence which later became well-known and beloved. The two Gypsy musicians provide a running commentary through the film, like a Greek chorus. One of them plays an accordion and sings, while the other plays a Jew's harp. The movie begins with them singing their recurring song, to which the refrain is "I'm miserable, I was born that way, I sing to sing my pain away... dear Mama, I wish this was just a dream." Near the end of the film, they are accused of stealing the veteran's wallet, and during the ensuing scuffle the bus is bombed. The musicians are the only survivors, and after they crawl out of the wreckage, the movie ends with them singing their song. Centar Film, the state-owned production house, wanted to make Dušan Kovačević's script into a movie since 1978. Reportedly, Goran Paskaljević was their first choice to direct the movie. He was supposed to shoot the Kovačević script as a contemporary-themed 50-minute TV movie set in the late 1970s on a public transport bus with the central character being an old man (played by Mija Aleksić) who is headed to visit his son in the army. However, Paskaljević decided to leave the project and shoot the feature film "Zemaljski dani teku" instead. The job then went to 33-year-old Slobodan Šijan who had never shot a feature film up to that point. The movie was made on a budget of US$130,000 with 21 shooting days.