FATHER

FEATURE FILM
SRDAN GOLUBOVIĆ / 2020

SYNOPSIS
A woman comes in front of a factory with two small children, threatening to set herself on fire if her husband is not paid his remaining salaries and severance package. No one reacts she does set herself on fire, to her children’s screaming and crying.Nikola works as a day worker, two years ago he was fired from the factory that went bankrupt. When they let him know what happened, Nikola runs to the factory and learns his wife was taken to the hospital, and the children were taken by Centre for Social Work. At the Centre for Social Work, he is told that the children are already placed in a foster family and will remain there until it is determined whether Nikola has adequate conditions to parent them. The head of the Centre tells him that even if he sorts the house and improves the conditions in it, this is not enough of a warranty that he is able to look after the children. There is one condition – a full time job. Nikola is baffled, in a small town in the south of Serbia economy is ruined, poverty is omnipresent and it’s impossible to get a full time job. Nikola learns there’s a chain corruption behind the Centre’s decision, that the head sends children to his village, to his family and neighbours, and takes a percentage of the money they receive from the state for it. Nikola decides, out of protest and despair, to walk all the way to Belgrade to the ministry, to look for justice and his right to his children. Nikola is walking, driven by the only thing he’s got left – his love for his children. On his five day long journey, on foot, Nikola meets different people, people much like him, losers, they help him and offer him hope. He is also helped by nature and animals, birds see him off and show him the way, wolves get out of his way, they let him pass and thus intimate his transformation. He is also tempted on his journey, a refugee trafficker Goran offers him a gun, and suggests they kidnap his children and he transport Nikola and them to Bosnia free of charge. He offers violence, anarchy, Nikola rejects that, he has his own way. Nikola continues his journey, stronger and more determined, on his mythic journey he turns from loser to hero. A modern day Messiah, Sisyphus managing to roll his stone over the top of the hill, a calm, stoic, unbreakable, invincible hero of these times.