Father

I put so much hope into this movie and I was most disappointed by the audience who applauded for a long time and commented that was disappointed. The authors did a good job. It's a good directing, a good story, great actors, but it's missing... a movie. Father didn't touch my emotions the way I expected, I'm sorry. Maximum 7/10.

I expected much more from Srdan Golubovic. I love Goran Bogdan but he did not fit me in this role. I was at the premiere tonight at FEST and was a little disappointed. Unexpectedly pretentious. To old glory 5/10.

I watched the movie premiere last night. Most of all I was touched by the children. And maybe that was the goal. As a viewer, that's enough for me, I enjoyed it. I read reviews that for some reason, the film overstates. Well done to Goran Bogdan and Hope Sargin too.

This is an intriguing yet bleak look at how poverty and corruption can totally alter the course of someone's life. Nikola is a day labour, recently fired from his factory job making pipes in his small, rural village. He is owed severance pay and wages, which his ex-employer refuses to give him. Thus, he has to take on meagre day labour jobs in order to have some income. He and his wife struggle to provide for their primary school aged children against a backdrop of extreme poverty and corruption by the town's local officials. With the children taken into foster care, Nikola sets off on a 150km journey for the Serbian capital to plead for their return.

Here is a struggling and stark reminder of how much power (or how little) people have based solely on their economic standings. While Nikola and his wife can't financially provide for their kids, he is still desperate to have them back at any price. The film has a universal theme of parental love. This movie was really well-made and well-acted. The lead actor, in particular, carried the emotional toll of this film brilliantly as he is often the only character on screen for a good chuck of the movie.

Being completely unfair with Serbian cinema, this was a really good film and gave a lot of insight on rural Serbian culture.

The Serbian film Otac (2020) was shown in the U. S. with the translated title Father. It was co-written and directed by Srdan Golubovic.

Goran Bogdan stars as Nikola--a worker who has been cheated of his severance pay by a factory at which he had been employed. He know works as a day laborer, doing difficult jobs whenever he can find them.

Despite his efforts, the municipality has taken his children from him. It's not a matter of right or wrong. It's a matter of a corrupt official who gains financially when children are put into foster care.

The movie shows us the immense sacrifices that Nikola makes to reunite his family. It's a great film about a man who refuses to be crushed.

We saw this film in Rochester's wonderful Dryden Theatre in The George Eastman Museum. It was shown as part of the outstanding Rochester Labor Film Series. Father has a strong IMDb rating of 7.6. I think it's a masterpiece, and rated it 10.