State security knows everything

This is Serbian director Emir Kusturica's second film after the coming of age drama Do You Remember Dolly Bell? His award-winning Underground was shown in Gaborone last year (see Mmegi 16 September 2008). When Father Was Away On Business was nominated for an Oscar as Best-foreign Language Film and won the Palme d'Or at Cannes.

Father Was Away is another film that approaches totalitarianism from the perspective of a child. Six-year-old Malik Zolj (acted by Moreno de Bartoli) is told his father is away on business when he is arrested in 1950 and sent to the equivalent of Yugoslavia's Siberia.