Regional Competition

The Undertaker

Dragan Nikolić
Screening time  
27.02. / Thursday, 17:00 - 19:00 Theatre 1  
28.02. / Friday, 12:00 - 14:00 Theatre 4  
01.03. / Saturday, 20:00 - 22:00 Theatre 2  
The undertakers have to blow off some steam too...

A Serbian named Bata works in his father-in-law's company Drnda Internacional, an undertaker's business. Mr. Drnda started the company when he returned home from labour in Germany and Austria. It is now an international business with 26 hearses, which brings Serbians who died abroad back home, or repatriates tourists whose vacations in Serbia ended badly. Bata drives back and forth between Eastern and Western Europe transporting various corpses. With an ever-grey sky, the hits of yesteryear on the radio and some heated exchanges with customs officers, he makes it back home, looking pretty calm and collected. But the trips and especially the human interaction take their toll on him. After all, undertakers have to blow off some steam, too. The camera remains focused on Bata the entire time, and we don't even get a glimpse of a dead body. As a result, this isn't a morbid tale of death, but rather an intimate portrait of an undertaker.

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Dragan Nikolić

Dragan Nikolić is director, scriptwriter and cinematographer. He achieved great success with previous films The Caviar Connection, National Park and Hot Line. Many of them have been screened and awarded at the renowned film festivals (IDFA, Berlinale, ZagrebDox). He was a cinematographer on Bar De Zi, the best Romanian documentary in 2007; a co-scriptwriter on Made in Serbia (2005); a co-scriptwriter and director assistant of a short fiction film Run Rabbit Run, which received the first award at Cannes Film Festival in Cinéfondation.

General sponsor

Pogrebnik

Germany, Serbia
2013, 53', video

Directed by:
Dragan Nikolić

Screenplay by:
Dragan Nikolić

Cinematography:
Dragan Nikolić, Jovana Nikolić

Edited by:
Milan Popović, Srđan Radmilović

Producer:
Jovana Nikolić

Produced by:
Prababa Production

Festivals & Awards:

International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam – IDFA 2013