The debut feature by documentary maker Zaka Abdrakhmanova explores complicated families, childhood trauma and grown-up tenderness.
A young Kazakh woman Ayko (Laura Tursunkanova) lives in Moscow and is a successful makeup artist working in film and advertising. When her family call her to let her know of her father’s death, she surprises everyone by deciding to attend the funeral, despite the fact that she has not seen her father for years and remembers him as a tyrant. In the village where she was born, Ayko meets her father’s new family: a young widow (Samal Yeslyamova) only a few years older than herself, a quiet son, and a difficult teenage daughter (Amina Orazbay). The family seem shattered by their loss. Ayko is perplexed, as her father was horrible to her and her mother. To understand their life and her own feelings Ayko decides to spend some time with her new family.
Zaka Abdrakhmanova, who studied at Marina Razbezhkina and Mikhail Ugarov’s School of Documentary Film and Theater and is known for the documentary My Love (2018), about the complicated relationships within her own family, brings her experience of observing reality into her first work of fiction. From her documentary work the film has inherited the well-captured atmosphere of the Kazakh village, its everyday practices and rituals. At the same time, Dad Croaked on Saturday is a meticulously constructed story with carefully crafted characters that maintains its tone throughout. As Zaka Abdrakhmanova explains, fictional film estranges the viewer from reality, allowing them see it differently and showing the complexity of the world without entering into a direct conflict with it.
Dad Croaked on Saturday premiered at the Busan Film Festival and received a Best Debut award at the Mayak Festival and two jury prizes at the Bely Slon Award.
The film will be screened in Russian and Kazakh with Russian subtitles.
Dad Croaked on Saturday
Director: Zaka Abdrakhmanova
Russia, 2024. 92 min.
18+