When Father Was Away on Business

When Father Was Away on Business

Directed by	Emir Kusturica
Produced by	Mirza Pašić
Written by	Abdulah Sidran
Starring	Moreno De Bartolli Miki Manojlović Mirjana Karanović Mustafa Nadarević Mira Furlan Davor Dujmović Predrag Laković Pavle Vujisić
Music by	Zoran Simjanović
Cinematography	Vilko Filač
Edited by	Andrija Zafranović
Production company	Centar Film Forum Sarajevo
Distributed by	Scotia International Filmverleih (1985) (West Germany) Cannon Film Distributors (USA) (subtitled) Hollydan Works (2007-2008) (Non-US) Koch Lorber Films (2005) (USA)
Release dates	12 September 1985 (1985-09-12) (West Germany)
Running time	136 minutes
Country	Yugoslavia
Language	Serbo-Croatian
Box office	$25,053 (West Germany only) $16,131 (USA only)

When Father Was Away on Business (Serbo-Croatian: Otac na službenom putu, Serbian Cyrillic: Отац на службеном путу) is a 1985 Yugoslav film by director Emir Kusturica. The screenplay was written by the Bosnian dramatist Abdulah Sidran. Its subtitle is A Historical Love Film and it was produced by Centar Film and Forum, production companies based in Sarajevo.

Set in post-World War II Yugoslavia during the Informbiro period, the film tells the story through the eyes of the young boy Malik. His father, communist functionary Meša (played by Miki Manojlović), has been sent to a labour camp by his own brother-in-law (his wife Sena's brother) Zijo who's an even higher positioned Communist functionary for making a remark about a political cartoon regarding the Tito–Stalin Split in the Politika newspaper.

Plot

The movie opens in June 1950 with a local neighbourhood drunk Čika Franjo serenading field workers. He sings Mexican songs (as it turns out, he does so out of self-preservation, figuring it's safer for him to steer clear of songs originating from either of the two dominant global powers — United States and Soviet Union — in the current climate of Cold War and Yugoslavia's paranoid repressive internal apparatus looking to identify and remove enemies of the state in the wake of the Tito–Stalin Split) while local children, including Malik, climb trees and play around. The story is from the perspective of the boy, Malik, whose mother Sena tells him that his father is on a business trip. Malik is a chronic sleepwalker.

After a while, Meša's wife and children rejoin him in Zvornik. Malik meets Maša, the daughter of a Russian doctor. He falls in love with her, but last sees her when the ambulance takes her away.

At the wedding of his maternal uncle Fahro, Malik witnesses his father's affair with a woman pilot. She later tries to commit suicide by using a toilet's flush cord. Sena reconciles with her brother Zijah, who's been diagnosed with diabetes.

Cast

Moreno de Bartoli as Malik Malkoč
Miki Manojlović as Mehmed "Meša" Malkoč
Mirjana Karanović as Senija "Sena" Malkoč (née Zulfikarpašić)
Mira Furlan as Ankica Vidmar
Mustafa Nadarević as Zijah "Zijo" Zulfikarpašić
Predrag Laković as Franjo
Pavle Vujisić as Muzafer Zulfikarpašić
Slobodan Aligrudić as Ostoja Cekić
Aleksandar Dorčev as Dr. Evgeni Liakhov
Silvija Puharić as Masha Liakhov
Emir Hadžihafizbegović as Fahro Zulfikarpašić
Davor Dujmović as Mirza Malkoč
Eva Ras as Ilonka Petrović
Jelena Čović as Nataša Petrović
Amer Kapetanović as Serjoža Petrović
Zoran Radmilović as Brko Pilot
Tomislav Gelić as Hamdo Malkoč, barber
Zaim Muzaferija as Predsjednik

Awards

1985 Cannes Film Festival: the Palme d'Or (Golden Palm) and the FIPRESCI Prize,^[1]
Nominated for the 1985 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film^[2]

References

↑ "Festival de Cannes: When Father Was Away on Business". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 2009-06-28.
↑ "The 58th Academy Awards (1986) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Retrieved 2013-11-10.

External links

Films by Emir Kusturica

Feature films	Do You Remember Dolly Bell? (1981) When Father Was Away on Business (1985) Time of the Gypsies (1988) Arizona Dream (1993) Underground (1995) Black Cat, White Cat (1998) Life Is a Miracle (2004) Promise Me This (2007) Words with Gods (2014)

Documentaries	Super 8 Stories (2001) Maradona by Kusturica (2008)

Palme d'Or winning films

1930s 1940s	Union Pacific – Cecil B. DeMille (1939) Iris and the Lieutenant – Alf Sjöberg (1946) The Lost Weekend – Billy Wilder (1946) The Red Meadows – Bodil Ipsen and Lau Lauritzen, Jr. (1946) Brief Encounter – David Lean (1946) María Candelaria – Emilio Fernández (1946) Neecha Nagar – Chetan Anand (1946) The Turning Point – Fridrikh Ermler (1946) La Symphonie Pastorale – Jean Delannoy (1946) The Last Chance – Leopold Lindtberg (1946) Men Without Wings – František Čáp (1946) Rome, Open City – Roberto Rossellini (1946) The Third Man – Carol Reed (1949)

1950s	Miss Julie – Alf Sjöberg (1951) Miracle in Milan – Vittorio De Sica (1951) The Tragedy of Othello: The Moor of Venice – Orson Welles (1952) Two Cents Worth of Hope – Renato Castellani (1952) The Wages of Fear – Henri-Georges Clouzot (1953) Gate of Hell – Teinosuke Kinugasa (1954) Marty – Delbert Mann (1955) The Silent World – Jacques Cousteau and Louis Malle (1956) Friendly Persuasion – William Wyler (1957) The Cranes Are Flying – Mikhail Kalatozov (1958) Black Orpheus – Marcel Camus (1959)

1960s	La Dolce Vita – Federico Fellini (1960) The Long Absence – Henri Colpi (1961) Viridiana – Luis Buñuel (1961) O Pagador de Promessas – Anselmo Duarte (1962) The Leopard – Luchino Visconti (1963) The Umbrellas of Cherbourg – Jacques Demy (1964) The Knack ...and How to Get It – Richard Lester (1965) A Man and a Woman – Claude Lelouch (1966) The Birds, the Bees and the Italians – Pietro Germi (1966) Blowup – Michelangelo Antonioni (1967) if.... – Lindsay Anderson (1969)

1970s	MASH – Robert Altman (1970) The Go-Between – Joseph Losey (1971) The Working Class Goes to Heaven – Elio Petri (1972) The Mattei Affair – Francesco Rosi (1972) The Hireling – Alan Bridges (1973) Scarecrow – Jerry Schatzberg (1973) The Conversation – Francis Ford Coppola (1974) Chronicle of the Years of Fire – Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina (1975) Taxi Driver – Martin Scorsese (1976) Padre Padrone – Paolo and Vittorio Taviani (1977) The Tree of Wooden Clogs – Ermanno Olmi (1978) Apocalypse Now – Francis Ford Coppola (1979) The Tin Drum – Volker Schlöndorff (1979)

1980s	All That Jazz – Bob Fosse (1980) Kagemusha – Akira Kurosawa (1980) Man of Iron – Andrzej Wajda (1981) Missing – Costa-Gavras (1982) Yol – Yılmaz Güney and Şerif Gören (1982) The Ballad of Narayama – Shohei Imamura (1983) Paris, Texas – Wim Wenders (1984) When Father Was Away on Business – Emir Kusturica (1985) The Mission – Roland Joffé (1986) Under the Sun of Satan – Maurice Pialat (1987) Pelle the Conqueror – Bille August (1988) Sex, Lies, and Videotape – Steven Soderbergh (1989)

1990s	Wild at Heart – David Lynch (1990) Barton Fink – Coen brothers (1991) The Best Intentions – Bille August (1992) Farewell My Concubine – Chen Kaige (1993) The Piano – Jane Campion (1993) Pulp Fiction – Quentin Tarantino (1994) Underground – Emir Kusturica (1995) Secrets & Lies – Mike Leigh (1996) Taste of Cherry – Abbas Kiarostami (1997) The Eel – Shohei Imamura (1997) Eternity and a Day – Theodoros Angelopoulos (1998) Rosetta – Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne (1999)

2000s	Dancer in the Dark – Lars von Trier (2000) The Son's Room – Nanni Moretti (2001) The Pianist – Roman Polanski (2002) Elephant – Gus Van Sant (2003) Fahrenheit 9/11 – Michael Moore (2004) The Child – Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne (2005) The Wind That Shakes the Barley – Ken Loach (2006) 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days – Cristian Mungiu (2007) The Class – Laurent Cantet (2008) The White Ribbon – Michael Haneke (2009)

2010s	Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives – Apichatpong Weerasethakul (2010) The Tree of Life – Terrence Malick (2011) Amour – Michael Haneke (2012) Blue Is the Warmest Colour – Abdellatif Kechiche (with actresses Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux) (2013) Winter Sleep – Nuri Bilge Ceylan (2014) Dheepan – Jacques Audiard (2015)

Big Golden Arena for Best Film at the Pula Film Festival

As Yugoslav Film Awards (1957–90)	Priests Ćira and Spira (1957) H-8 (1958) Train Without a Timetable (1959) The Ninth Circle (1960) Ballad About a Trumpet and a Cloud & The First Fires (1961) Kozara (1962) Face to Face (1963) Official Position (1964) Prometheus of the Island & Three (1965) Monday or Tuesday (1966) I Even Met Happy Gypsies (1967) When I Am Pale and Dead (1968) Downstream from the Sun (1969) Handcuffs (1970) Red Wheat (1971) The Master and Margaret (1972) The Battle of Sutjeska (1973) The Republic of Užice (1974) The House (1975) Idealist (1976) Don't Lean Out the Window (1977) Occupation in 26 Pictures (1978) Trophy (1979) Petria's Wreath (1980) The Fall of Italy (1981) Body Scent (1983) Balkan Spy (1984) When Father Was Away on Business (1985) Happy New Year '49 (1986) Reflections (1987) My Uncle's Legacy (1988) The Meeting Point (1989) Silent Gunpowder (1990)

As Croatian Film Awards (1992–present)	Story from Croatia (1992) Countess Dora (1993) Washed Out (1995) How the War Started on My Island (1996) Mondo Bobo (1997) When the Dead Start Singing (1998) Madonna (1999) Marshal Tito's Spirit (2000) Slow Surrender (2001) Fine Dead Girls (2002) Here (2003) Long Dark Night (2004) What Iva Recorded (2005) All for Free (2006) The Living and the Dead (2007) No One's Son (2008) Metastases (2009) Just Between Us (2010) Kotlovina (2011) A Letter to My Father (2012) A Stranger (2013) Number 55 (2014) The High Sun (2015)

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