Father - Otac

Movie
German title	Father - Otac
Original title	Otac
Country of production	Serbia , France , Germany , Croatia , Slovenia , Bosnia and Herzegovina
original language	Serbian
Publishing year	2020
length	120 minutes
Age rating	FSK 12
Rod
Director	Srđan Golubović
script	Srdan Golubović, ; Ognjen Svilicić
production	Jelena Mitrović , ; Čedomir Kolar , ; Alexander Ris , ; Marc Baschet , ; Danis Tanović , ; Boris T. Matić , ; Lana Matić , ; Danijel Hočevar , ; Amra Bakšić Čamo , ; Adis Djapo
camera	Aleksandar Ilić
cut	Petar Marković
occupation
	Goran Bogdan : Nikola; Nada Sargin : Biljana; Boris Isaković : Vasiljević; Milica Janevski: Službenica; Muharem Hamzić: Miloš; Ajla Šantić: Sanja; Vahid Džanković: Službenik; Jovo Maksić: Goran; Milan Marić: Jovanović; Nikola Rakocevic: Radoje;

Father - Otac (original title only Otac ) is a film drama by Srđan Golubović , which premiered in February 2020 as part of the Berlin Film Festival and is due to hit German cinemas on December 3, 2020. In the film, a father goes on a walk to Belgrade to get his children back, whom the corrupt authorities in his city have placed in foster families because they do not trust him to be able to look after them.

action

Nikola works as a casual worker in a small town in Serbia. When his wife Biljana comes into the factory yard with her two children and a bottle of gasoline, she threatens to set herself and the children on fire. When she tries to keep her promise, those present find it difficult to extinguish the woman on fire.

Because Nikola is not trusted to look after them on her own and there is neither electricity nor running water in her apartment because they could not pay the last bills, the children are to be placed in foster families until he creates a suitable living environment for them both . Despite his appeals to the authorities, however, his children are not returned.

He does not want to accept the decision of the social service and its head Vasiljević and sets off on a 300-kilometer walk to Belgrade to contact the national social ministry directly. With a blanket, a bottle of water, a loaf of bread and a piece of bacon in his backpack, he begins his five-day journey to the Serbian capital.

production

The film tells the story, based on a true story, of a father who walks 300 kilometers from the provinces to the Serbian capital of Belgrade to express his desperate desire to have his children rehabilitated. Directed by the Serb Srdan Golubović , who wrote the script together with Ognjen Svilicić .

Production funding of 150,000 euros was granted by the Central German Media Fund. The project was also funded by Eurimages with 240,000 euros.

Goran Bogdan , one of the busiest Croatian actors, born in the former Yugoslavia, plays the eponymous father Nikola. Nada Šargin plays mother Biljana in the short opening sequence. Boris Isaković plays Vasiljević, the head of the three-person commission of the social services. Milica Janevski , Muharem Hamzić , Ajla Šantić , Vahid Džanković , Jovo Maksić , Milan Marić and Nikola Rakocevic can also be seen in other roles .

The world premiere took place on February 22, 2020 as part of the Berlin Film Festival , where the film was shown in the Panorama section. After an initial screening at the Belgrade Film Festival, the film was released in Serbian cinemas in early March. From August 10th to 12th, 2020 it was shown in the Berlin open-air cinema Friedrichshain. At the end of August and beginning of September 2020 it was presented at the Five Lakes Film Festival and at the end of August 2020 at the Molodist International Film Festival . It should come to German cinemas on December 3, 2020.

reception

Age ratings and reviews

In Germany, the film was approved by the FSK from the age of 12.

Goran Bogdan plays the father Nikola

Vladan Petkovic writes in the online cinema magazine Cineuropa that on this trip you can see through Nikola's eyes the results of a series of bad governments that the country has undergone in the last 20 years, such as streets full of potholes, abandoned factories and gas stations and run-down residential buildings. In the individual episodes he meets both kind-hearted and not-so-nice people, whereby the film paints the picture of a complete society in which the existing system only serves those who are privileged and in power, the small, ordinary man falls by the wayside to wage an impossible fight for his basic human rights, Petkovic said. Nikola is not a fighter for social justice, but simply a father who wants his children back, and Goran Bogdan plays this with an extremely high naturalistic intensity and as a man with few words, whose eyes and subtle facial expressions tell us everything we do need to know about his nature and state of mind. Given the way Srdan Golubović and Ognjen Svilicić wrote the script, leave anger and indignation to the audience.

The film service writes that the film shows the communal system, which is still arrested in socialist arbitrariness, corrupt structures, a blatant urban-rural divide as well as the hard-to-bear neglect of an entire country. Because the father manages to deal with the catastrophic tension, his feelings of guilt and the challenges on the way to Belgrade in a reserved and non-violent manner, he becomes a hero without ever seeing himself as a hero.

The German Film and Media Assessment gave the film the rating of particularly valuable . The jury's reasoning states that the slowness of the film develops an emotional force that underscores the hopelessness and futility of Nikola's mission without breaking the film into a too predictable disaster. Instead, he keeps interesting lessons ready, so when Nikola meets people who are almost worse off. The man you feel sorry for becomes a figure that you admire for the strength with which he holds on to wanting to restore normality for himself and his family.