Slovak Director Tereza Nvotová didn’t want to make “Father.”
“To be honest, I thought: ‘I can’t do it. I don’t know how.’ These kinds of movies can be so heavy – you just feel like you’re sinking. But I also couldn’t stop thinking about this story.”
In the Venice Horizons drama, sold by Intramovies, a horrific mistake destroys one father’s life, threatening his career, marriage and even his sanity. Nvotová’s co-writer Dušan Budzak based it on the ordeal of his own best friend.
“My mind kept going back to the day when this happened to him, which was sort of a boring day – the kind we have all the time. And then everything changes, and he’s crushed. I realized it wasn’t just some horrible story. This could actually happen to me, too,” she tells Variety.
“Father” is not based just on one case, however.
“I kept reading about it, about that “forgotten baby syndrome.” It’s hundreds of cases every year, all around the world,” she explains.
“We had that personal connection because of Dušan, but then we moved away from it. All these stories were quite similar. Mostly, it happens to a very loving parent. To all kinds of people, old, young, coming from all social classes. If we would like to simplify it, I would say it’s a memory failure. And now, with rising temperatures and more cars than ever, it’s happening more and more often.”
She adds: “This year, I’ve already heard about three new cases – just in the region I’m from.”
Thinking about Gus Van Sant’s “Elephant,” inspired by the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, Nvotová started to look for the right way to approach a difficult subject. Favoring long takes, she decided not to be too explicit.
“Encouraging people to come to the cinema will be one of the biggest challenges about this film. You can’t lie to them. But I didn’t make this movie to make anyone feel bad. I made it so that they can gain some perspective they didn’t have before.” And, hopefully, also feel some compassion.
“When it happened to Dušan’s friend, back in 2015, the society was so quick to judge him. They called him a murderer, a ‘bad father.’ But it’s not really the case.”
Same goes for her protagonist Michal, played by Milan Ondrík. He’s joined by Dominika Moravkova and Anna Geislerová.
“We look at others, feeling so righteous, and think: ‘There must have been something wrong with them’.” We like to think that if we always do the right thing, nothing bad will ever come our way. But he’s a good dad and that’s also what I wanted to say: this happens to good people.”
Focusing on a man experiencing unimaginable grief was interesting to Nvotová, who previously focused on women in “Filthy” and Locarno-winning “Nightsiren.”
“I didn’t think too much about his gender – we just happened to be inspired by a real-life father – but I was glad to explore male psyche. In my country, feminism is not very popular. Sometimes, people would look at my work and call it ‘feminine’,” she admits.
“In our culture, men aren’t supposed to show any emotions. They are taught, and we have a very conservative society in Slovakia, to always be strong. You can’t be weak. Ever. Michal is challenged in that very sense throughout the movie, because all these social norms are no longer working for him.”
While writing the script, she kept cutting his lines.
“He wouldn’t talk about these things unless being questioned, like during the trial. He says: ‘Nothing makes sense anymore.’ After something like this, it’s so hard to find any meaning. Your whole world breaks down and you have to rebuild it again.”
His tragedy immediately becomes public. But Nvotová kept peeking behind closed doors.
“I was interested in what happens on that first night when they finally go home – without their daughter. That’s when we can connect with these characters, because they are emotionally naked. How is he going to deal with all this guilt, is he going to survive it? How is he going to relate to society and just be a person again?”
“Father” is produced by Danae Production (Slovakia), moloko film (Czech Republic) and Lava Films (Poland), the latter also behind Oscar-nominated “The Girl with the Needle.”
“Thankfully, the European system still works. Slovakia is a small country. You really need big festivals like Venice – otherwise, your films disappear. But as long as you can get them financed, intimate stories are what I want to do. I don’t think anyone would pay attention to ‘Father’ in Hollywood. Here, in Europe, it’s still possible,” says Nvotová, who’s currently looking beyond her country’s borders.
“Politically, Slovakia is not in a good place right now. The current government is breaking all the financial structures that allowed me to make my movies. I’m not sure I will be able to continue [there],” she says.
“I’m now going to shoot ‘Our People,’ a limited TV series produced between the Czech Republic, Germany and France. But I’m planning my next movies outside of Slovakia.”
