The Last Image of Father
2019 · 20m · Serbia
Directed by Stefan Đorđević
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tender
Seen from the perspective of terminally ill single father Dušan, who is feverishly trying to provide his nine-year-old son Laza with a loving home before he dies, on a fraught journey from Paraćin to Belgrade.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Everyone expects the deathbed drama to wring tears—Đorđević refuses the easy catharsis, instead building something queasy and unsentimental about a father's desperation that doesn't resolve into redemption, which is exactly why it sticks.
The formal restraint here—shooting from Dušan's subjective perspective without ever exploiting it for melodrama—positions this within a lineage of European social realism that trusts the viewer's intelligence; the journey becomes both literal and formal, a sustained meditation on mortality and custody framed through compositional discipline.
The decision to keep Laza mostly off-screen, let the father's awareness of his son's presence do the emotional work rather than the performance itself, transforms what could've been manipulative into something achingly precise—every glance toward where the boy might be carries the whole weight.
Reviews
The film gets stuck in every fiber of the body, raising important questions about our mortality and the legacy we leave to our children. Last year, The Last Image of Father won Young Jury award for the best international short film in Locarno, and the Heart of Sarajevo award for the best international short film.
Festivals
- Sarajevo Film Festival 2019, Heart of Sarajevo for Best Short Film
- Locarno Film Festival 2019, Young Jury Award for Best International Short Film
- DokuFest 2020, International Shorts Competition