When Father Was Away on Business

When Father Was Away on Business

When Father Was Away on Business

Share

When Father Was Away on Business

1985

2h 16m

7.3(151 votes)

Drama

Overview

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.

Links & Resources

Social & External

Production Companies

The people behind it

Cast & crew

10 featured cast members

Starring

Moreno de Bartoli

Malik

Predrag 'Miki' Manojlović

Predrag 'Miki' Manojlović

Mehmed 'Meša' Zolj, otac

Mirjana Karanović

Mirjana Karanović

Senija 'Sena' Zolj, majka

Mustafa Nadarević

Mustafa Nadarević

Zijah 'Zijo' Zulfikarpašić

Mira Furlan

Mira Furlan

Ankica Vidmar

Predrag Laković

Predrag Laković

Kućepazitelj Franjo

Pavle Vuisić

Pavle Vuisić

Muzafer Zulfikarpašić, dedo

Slobodan Aligrudić

Slobodan Aligrudić

Ostoja Cekić

Eva Ras

Eva Ras

Ilonka Petrović

Aco Gjorčev

Dr. Jevgeni Ljahov

Creative team

Directed by: Emir Kusturica
Written by: Abdulah Sidran
Produced by: Mirza Pašić

Similar Movies

Astray

Astray

In the communist Romania of Nicolae Ceausescu, a young Romanian woman marries a German citizen just to leave the country.

The Secret Life of Words

The Secret Life of Words

A solitary nurse bonds with a badly burned patient who survived an accident on an oil rig.

Desert Hearts

Desert Hearts

While waiting for her divorce papers, a repressed literature professor finds herself unexpectedly attracted by a carefree, spirited young woman named Cay.

The Godfather

The Godfather

Spanning the years 1945 to 1955, a chronicle of the fictional Italian-American Corleone crime family. When organized crime family patriarch, Vito Corleone barely survives an attempt on his life, his youngest son, Michael steps in to take care of the would-be killers, launching a campaign of bloody revenge.

Good Bye, Lenin!

Good Bye, Lenin!

Alex Kerner's mother was in a coma while the Berlin wall fell. When she wakes up he must try to keep her from learning what happened (as she was an avid communist supporter) to avoid shocking her which could lead to another heart attack.

Rain Man

Rain Man

When car dealer Charlie Babbitt learns that his estranged father has died, he returns home to Cincinnati, where he discovers that he has a savant older brother named Raymond and that his father's $3 million fortune is being left to the mental institution in which Raymond lives. Motivated by his father's money, Charlie checks Raymond out of the facility in order to return with him to Los Angeles. The brothers' cross-country trip ends up changing both their lives.

Chocolat

Chocolat

In the winter of 1959, a single mother and her young daughter arrive in a rural French town, where they open an unusual chocolate shop that disrupts the moral fiber of the strictly Catholic townsfolk and mayor.

Capote

Capote

A biopic of writer Truman Capote and his assignment for The New Yorker to write the non-fiction book "In Cold Blood".

Dead Poets Society

Dead Poets Society

At an elite, old-fashioned boarding school in New England, a passionate English teacher inspires his students to rebel against convention and seize the potential of every day, courting the disdain of the stern headmaster.

Scarface

Scarface

After getting a green card in exchange for assassinating a Cuban government official, Tony Montana stakes a claim on the drug trade in Miami. Viciously murdering anyone who stands in his way, Tony eventually becomes the biggest drug lord in the state, controlling nearly all the cocaine that comes through Miami. But increased pressure from the police, wars with Colombian drug cartels and his own drug-fueled paranoia serve to fuel the flames of his eventual downfall.

Blue

Blue

A college girl comes to terms with her father's cancer when he comes to help paint her room the color she's always wanted: blue.

The Godfather Part II

The Godfather Part II

In the continuing saga of the Corleone crime family, a young Vito Corleone grows up in Sicily and in 1910s New York. In the 1950s, Michael Corleone attempts to expand the family business into Las Vegas, Hollywood and Cuba.

Breathless

Breathless

A small-time thief steals a car and impulsively murders a motorcycle policeman. Wanted by the authorities, he attempts to persuade a girl to run away to Italy with him.

Stand by Me

Stand by Me

After learning that a boy their age has been accidentally killed near their rural homes, four boys decide to go see the body. Gordie, Vern, Chris, and Teddy encounter a mean junk man and a marsh full of leeches, but they also learn more about one another and their very different home lives. Just a lark at first, the boys' adventure evolves into a defining event in their lives.

Batman Begins

Batman Begins

Driven by tragedy, billionaire Bruce Wayne dedicates his life to uncovering and defeating the corruption that plagues his home, Gotham City. Unable to work within the system, he instead creates a new identity, a symbol of fear for the criminal underworld - The Batman.

Amerikatsi

Amerikatsi

In 1948, decades after fleeing Armenia to the US as a child, Charlie returns in the hopes of finding a connection to his roots, but what he finds instead is a country crushed under Soviet rule. After being unjustly imprisoned, Charlie falls into despair, until he discovers that he can see into a nearby apartment from his cell window - the home of a prison guard.

Braveheart

Braveheart

Enraged at the slaughter of Murron, his new bride and childhood love, Scottish warrior William Wallace slays a platoon of the local English lord's soldiers. This leads the village to revolt and, eventually, the entire country to rise up against English rule.

Man of Marble

Man of Marble

A young Polish filmmaker sets out to find out what happened to Mateusz Birkut, a bricklayer who became a propaganda hero in the 1950s but later fell out of favor and disappeared.

Léon: The Professional

Léon: The Professional

Léon, the top hit man in New York, has earned a rep as an effective "cleaner". But when his next-door neighbors are wiped out by a loose-cannon DEA agent, he becomes the unwilling custodian of 12-year-old Mathilda. Before long, Mathilda's thoughts turn to revenge, and she considers following in Léon's footsteps.

Once Upon a Time in the West

Once Upon a Time in the West

As the railroad builders advance unstoppably through the Arizona desert on their way to the sea, Jill arrives in the small town of Flagstone with the intention of starting a new life.

Recommended Movies

Sight

Sight

Ming Wang is an impoverished Chinese prodigy who flees Communist China to become a pioneering eye surgeon in America. When tasked with restoring the sight of an orphan in India, who was blinded by her stepmother, Wang must confront the trauma of living through the violent uprising in his youth, the Cultural Revolution.

A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints

A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints

Dito Montiel, a successful author, receives a call from his long-suffering mother, asking him to return home and visit his ailing father. Dito recalls his childhood growing up in a violent neighborhood in Queens, N.Y., with friends Antonio, Giuseppe, Nerf and Mike.

Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl

Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl

Young teen girl Xiu Xiu is sent away to a remote corner of the Sichuan steppes for manual labor in 1975 (sending young people to there was a part of Cultural Revolution in China). A year later, she agrees to go to even more remote spot with a Tibetan saddle tramp Lao Jin to learn horse herding.

Rebel Without a Cause

Rebel Without a Cause

After moving to a new town, troublemaking teen Jim Stark is supposed to have a clean slate, although being the new kid in town brings its own problems. While searching for some stability, Stark forms a bond with a disturbed classmate, Plato, and falls for local girl Judy. However, Judy is the girlfriend of neighborhood tough, Buzz. When Buzz violently confronts Jim and challenges him to a drag race, the new kid's real troubles begin.

Skin

Skin

Based on the true story of a black girl who was born to two white Afrikaner parents in South Africa during the apartheid era.

20th Century Women

20th Century Women

In 1979 Santa Barbara, California, Dorothea Fields is a determined single mother in her mid-50s who is raising her adolescent son, Jamie, at a moment brimming with cultural change and rebellion. Dorothea enlists the help of two younger women – Abbie, a free-spirited punk artist living as a boarder in the Fields' home and Julie, a savvy and provocative teenage neighbour – to help with Jamie's upbringing.

Tommy

Tommy

After a series of traumatic childhood events, a psychosomatically deaf, dumb and blind boy becomes a master pinball player and the object of a religious cult.

Lorelei

Lorelei

A man is released from prison after 15 years. He reunites with his high school girlfriend, now a single mother of three. What follows is a lyrical take on love, regret and second chances.

Nocturnal Animals

Nocturnal Animals

Susan Morrow receives a book manuscript from her ex-husband – a man she left 20 years earlier – asking for her opinion of his writing. As she reads, she is drawn into the fictional life of Tony Hastings, a mathematics professor whose family vacation turns violent.

The Thing with Feathers

The Thing with Feathers

Following the death of his wife, a young father's hold on reality crumbles, and a strange presence begins to stalk him from the shadowy recesses of the apartment he shares with his two young sons.

Boy A

Boy A

Freed after a lengthy term in a juvenile detention center, convicted child killer Jack Burridge finds work as a deliveryman and begins dating co-worker Michelle. While out on the road one day, Jack notices a distressed child, and, after reuniting the girl with her family, becomes a local celebrity. But when a local newspaper unearths his past, Jack must cope with the anger of citizens who fear for the safety of their children.

Bastard Out of Carolina

Bastard Out of Carolina

A poor, struggling South Carolinian mother and daughter face painful choices with their resolve and pride. Bone, the eldest daughter, and Anney her tired mother, grow both closer and farther apart: Anney sees Glen as her last chance.

A Bronx Tale

A Bronx Tale

Set in the Bronx during the tumultuous 1960s, an adolescent boy is torn between his honest, working-class father and a violent yet charismatic crime boss. Complicating matters is the youngster's growing attraction - forbidden in his neighborhood - for a beautiful black girl.

Unthinkable

Unthinkable

The government gets wind of a plot to destroy America involving a trio of nuclear weapons for which the whereabouts are unknown. It's up to a seasoned interrogator and an FBI agent to find out exactly where the nukes are.

The Young One

The Young One

A jazz musician seeks refuge from a lynch mob on a remote island, where he meets a hostile game warden and the young object of his attentions.

The Way Back

The Way Back

A small band of multicultural convicts stages a daring escape from a WWII-era Siberian gulag, and embarks on a treacherous journey across five countries in a desperate race for freedom and survival.

The Lovely Bones

The Lovely Bones

After being brutally murdered, 14-year-old Susie Salmon watches from heaven over her grief-stricken family -- and her killer. As she observes their daily lives, she must balance her thirst for revenge with her desire for her family to heal.

Room

Room

Held captive for 7 years in an enclosed space, a woman and her young son finally gain their freedom, allowing the boy to experience the outside world for the first time.

Secrets & Lies

Secrets & Lies

After her adoptive mother dies, Hortense, a successful black optometrist, seeks out her birth mother. She's shocked when her research leads her to Cynthia, a working class white woman.

Nowhere Boy

Nowhere Boy

A rebellious teenager, future Beatle John Lennon lives with his Aunt Mimi in working-class mid-1950s Liverpool, England. Mimi's husband suddenly dies, and John spies his mother Julia at the funeral. Despite Mimi's misgivings, John intends to have a real relationship with his mother. Julia introduces him to popular music and the banjo and, though a family conflict looms, young John is inspired to form his own band.