When Father Was Away on Business

A melancholic, intimate portrait of a child's confusion and loss as his father vanishes into a Stalinist labor camp, told through the fog of childhood incomprehension.

In a post-WWII Yugoslavia still under Stalinist rule in the 1950s, six-year-old Malik is oblivious as to why his father, Mehmed, has suddenly disappeared. In truth, Mehmed has been sent to a labor camp as punishment for acts of sexual indiscretion involving young girls. Malik's mother, Senija, however, has no answers, and the family must cope in the father's absence.