On Tuesday afternoon, the European Film Academy announced the final list of nominations for the European Film Awards. Goran Bogdan is nominated in the best actor category for his role in the film Father by Srdan Golubović. Bogdan is the first Croatian actor to be nominated for this prestigious award. The European Film Awards are the European equivalent of the Academy Awards and are the most significant film recognitions of the Old Continent with which the European Film Academy (EFA) celebrates excellence in film every year. Other finalists in the best actor category are Bartosz Bielenia (Corpus Christi), Viggo Mortensen (Falling), Elio Germano (Hidden Away), Luca Marinelli (Martin Eden), and Mads Mikkelsen (Another Round).

Father is based on real life events and follows the story of an unemployed part-time worker who, after social services take his children away, leaves his village in the south of Serbia to walk to Belgrade where he plans to present his case to the minister himself. In the main role of the film, which critics dub “the Balkan version of Paris, Texas” (Vladan Petković, Cineuropa), Goran Bogdan embodied a desperate marginalized father who turns into a hero of our age.

The film premiered in the Panorama program of Berlinale where it won the audience’s and Ecumenical Jury award, continuing the global success of the director’s previous film, Circles. Goran Bogdan received an award for his performance at Belgrade’s FEST, where the film also won the FEDEORA award, as well as the award for the most popular film, and he also received the Golden Arena for Best Actor at Pula Film Festival. In Pula, Father also won the audience award, the Golden Gate, as the first film in the festival’s history with an average audience score of 5.0.

It’s a great honour and immeasurable luck that I find myself in such big company. I’m delighted that our work on this difficult and sensitive topic has been recognized. From first try-outs with director Srdan Golubović, I was happy that we’re sailing through these gentle topics such as fatherhood and the struggle of man to find himself in a world he doesn’t belong to. In this time, where we’re all the “Father”, the nomination is almost like crossing the finish line. This news definitely made my day in these crazy times. I am grateful from the bottom of my heart, Goran Bogdan said about his nomination.

Alongside Goran Bogdan, the main roles are played by Boris Isaković, Nada Šargin, and Milica Janevski, and the screenplay was co-written by Srdan Golubović and Croatian director and scriptwriter Ognjen Sviličić. The film was made in co-production with six countries – Serbia, France, Germany, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Croatian producers Lana Matić and Boris T. Matić from Propeler Film, who cooperated with this director on the award-winning Circles. Among other things, the film was co-financed by the Croatian Audiovisual Center and Eurimages.

Goran Bogdan is a Croatian film, TV, and theatre actor and one of the favourite actors from small and big screens in Croatia and the region. He starred in a number of films, among others in Sonja and the Bull (2012), Handymen (2013), The Priest’s Children (2013), Number 55 (2014), These Are The Rules (2014), What a Country! (2018), and Father (2020), and in a number of popular Croatian and regional TV shows, such as Success (2019), Balkan Shadows (2017), Morning Changes Everything (2018), and Underneath (2020). He starred in several international productions, such as Fargo (2017) and The Last Panthers (2015-2016).

Winners of the European Film Awards will be announced live via video-link on Saturday, December 12, when the 33^rd European Film Awards take place in Berlin, in the EFA’s headquarters.

Father opened this year’s edition of Zagreb Film Festival, and it will be screened on the last day of the festival, in the You Missed it program, from Saturday, November 14, till Sunday, November 15. The film will soon go into regular cinema distribution in cinemas across Croatia. From November 19, it will be available in Zagreb (Tuškanac cinema, Metropolis cinema, Cinestar Branimir, Cinestar Kaptol Boutique), Split (Karaman cinema), Rijeka (Artkino), Dubrovnik, Đakovo, Osijek, Varaždin, and soon after that in Metković, Rovinj, Pula, and Tabor.