In Jan Saczek’s Dad’s Not Home, two brothers keep up appearances as their behavior at school is repeatedly flagged and they need to pretend that their father, who has dementia, is still able to take care of them.
Awards Buzz spoke with Saczek about how this short film first came about:
“The initial inspiration was just the fact that I had to shoot my thesis film at my film school in Poland, so I had to come up with some idea, but I was struggling with it, so I asked my family to help me. We were brainstorming some ideas and it was actually my sister who gave me this initial idea that later turned into the basis of the plot for Dad’s Not Home. It’s also because it tells a story of two underage brothers who are taking care of their father who suffers from dementia. A member of my family suffers from a disease that resembles the condition that father has in the film, so I took some of that from the reality and, yeah, that was the beginning.”
He also commented on casting the lead roles:
“Well, certainly casting child actors is always a difficulty. I cheated a little bit because, from the beginning, I wanted to get kids who had experience, previous experience in front of the camera so they already knew all the technical stuff. Both Konrad, who plays the older brother, he had lots of experience, but also, Tomek, the younger brother, knew everything about how movie sets work. Because pretty much from the beginning, I knew that Piotr Lukawski would play the father, I arranged to check if energies are matching, to see how they interact, how they work together, and it turned out good, so that’s why we went with it.”
Watch the video above to hear more about how the film has been received and whether or not this could end up being a feature film.
Dad’s Not Home is on the Oscar shortlist for Best Live Action Short.
