The Uncle, Croatian-Serbian co-production directed by Andrija Mardešić and David Kapac, supported in the competition for minority co-productions of the Film Center Serbia, will have its world premiere in the new competition section “Proxima” at the 56th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.
Prominent Serbian actor Predrag Miki Manojlović plays the title role and the cast also includes Goran Bogdan and Ivana Roščić. The director of photography is Miloš Jaćimović, known for his cinematographic contribution to the award-winning works Tilva Roš, Barbarians and Oasis. The film was directed by Andrija Mardešić and David Kapac, and the two of them are also the authors of the screenplay. The producers of the film are Ivan Kelava and Tomislav Vujić (Eclectica, Croatia), and the co-producer is Milan Stojanović (Sense Production, Serbia).
In a description on the festival’s website, the film is said to be “a disturbing debut in the style of Haneke, skillfully balancing between farce and thriller, while ingeniously playing with the narrative structure.”
The film is set at Christmas time in Yugoslavia, at the end of the 1980s. The family – mother, father and son – are happy to welcome their beloved uncle who is coming home for the holidays from Germany. The Uncle hands out presents and a traditional Christmas lunch – a turkey with grinders and a French salad – folows. The family idyll is interrupted by the sudden ringing of a smartphone, so it soon becomes clear that the film is not set in the eighties, that it is not Christmas and that the tension can be cut with a knife at a crowded holiday table.