Scenes With My Father
dir. BISERKA SURAN
This personal and original documentary by the Dutch-Croatian director Biserka Suran deals with her father’s memories of his country of origin – Yugoslavia. After premiering at IDFA, the film won the best documentary prize at Trieste FF.
The filmmaker invites her father to join her on a symbolic journey through an old factory, reviving scenes and memories from their native country. In her directorial debut, Biserka Suran enters into a conversation with her father about their shared past, the history of the Balkans, and what it all means for their identity. An empty factory is transformed into cinematic sets, which provide a background to conversations they’ve never had before. Together, they explore their experiences and ideas around nationality and identity, Europe as an idea and construct, and their dreams and regrets. The result is an inspiring conversation that many viewers would like to have with their parents.
SHOWTIMES | Special Feature: Masterclass + Q&A with director Biserka Šuran. Moderated by Margje de Koning, artistic director of Movies that Matter Festival.
Thursday, 23 November – 16:00
SCENES MET MIJN VADER | 2022 | 47 min | Netherlands, Croatia
| PRODUCTION | Biserka Suran – Biser Productions |
| CINEMATOGRAPHY | Abel van Dijk |
| EDITING | Nina Graafland |
| SOUND | Jacob Oostra, Brandon Grotzinger |
| MUSIC | Eren Onsoy |
| LANGUAGE | Dutch, Croatian |
| SUBTITLES | English |
FESTIVALS & AWARDS (SELECTION)
Trieste Film Festival, 2023 – Best Documentary | ZagrebDox, 2023 – Best Young Director, Special Mention | SEEfest Los Angeles, 2023 – Best Documentary | International Documentary Film Festival of Castellorizo, 2023 – History Award, FIPRESCI Award | IDFA, 2022 – World Premiere
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
In Scenes with My Father my father and I hit upon a journey through space and time in a universe that resembles the limbo that many immigrants enter. Using the medium in a performative way, I’m trying to show how a difficult relationship with one’s own country and history can have a disturbing effect on the relationship you have with the people you love most.
DIRECTOR’S BIO
Biserka Šuran (Yugoslavia, 1989) is a Dutch/Croatian film director, living and working in Amsterdam. Her first documentary ‘Out of Love’ is a film about domestic abuse amongst men that got her into the Netherlands Film Academy. In 2015 she graduated as a documentary director with the short ‘Come On, Let’s Go’. In 2018 she started developing ‘Scenes with My Father’ within the IDFAcademy & NPO-fonds workshop. ‘Scenes With My Father’, her debut film, premiered at the International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam in the Envision Competition.