This man has come to complain: After losing his job, dousing himself with petrol and setting fire to his wife out of sheer desperation, and the office stealing his children, the Serbian unskilled worker Nikola (Goran Bogdan) sets off to the responsible ministry to Belgrade. Since he has no money for the bus, he walks 300 kilometers for five days.
The Serbian Srdan Golubović was inspired by a true story for his feature film “Father – Otac”: Serbian media reported on the justice-seeking father from whom the children had been taken. So the director and screenwriter drove to the ministry and talked to the real role model for his film. “I realized that there was something very special about the story, something inspiring and cinematic, a kind of ‘Paris, Texas’ narrative like the one written in the Balkans,” said Golubović.
But his film is also reminiscent of the directorial work of the British class warrior Ken Loach: He too tells of the poorest of the poor in a country that is falling apart architecturally, economically and socially. He doesn’t need a lot of words for that, a look into the weary face of his outstanding main actor is enough: Croatian Goran Bogdan is a well-known film and television actor in his home country, but he was also seen in the third season of the US series “Fargo”.
Father – Otac, SRB / F / D / HRV / SVN / BIH 2020, director: Srdan Golubović, with Goran Bogdan, Boris Isaković, Nada Šargin, release date: December 2, 2021