Toronto-Bound ‘Our Father,’ From ‘Operation Sabre’ Creator, Boarded by Split Screen (EXCLUSIVE)

Croatia-based sales outfit Split Screen has acquired Serbian filmmaker Goran Stanković’s feature “Our Father,” ahead of its world premiere in Toronto Film Festival’s Discovery section.

Stanković’s recent TV series “Operation Sabre,” created and directed with Vladimir Tagić, was a prize winner at Canneseries. His feature documentary “In the Dark” world premiered at IDFA. Stanković, who was raised in Serbia, studied filmmaking at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles, where his thesis film “Way in Rye” was nominated for a Student Academy Award for best narrative short.

“Our Father,” which is Stanković’s debut narrative feature, follows 32-year-old Dejan who, after years of spiraling addiction, arrives at a secluded monastery commune run by a strict but magnetic priest. Isolated from the outside world, the commune treats addiction through labor, discipline, obedience and faith.

Assigned a humble guardian and immersed in a rigid daily routine, Dejan begins a slow and painful journey toward recovery. But when a disturbing video surfaces showing a patient violently enforcing the rules, the outside world takes notice and Dejan is forced to choose between protecting the system that gave him purpose or confronting the truth he can no longer ignore.

Stanković said, “I hope the film will spark conversations not only about the boundaries between help and control, but also about how power operates in the spaces we least expect.”

Stanković, who wrote the script with Ognjen Sviličić, Maja Pelević and Dejan Prćić, developed the film through years of research and interviews with former patients of faith-based recovery programs.

Split Screen’s Marcella Jelic said the film was a “powerful drama about how faith and discipline can evolve into control.” She added: “The moral complexities of the story are particularly well underlined by the exacting visual style and strong performances.”

The producer is Snežana van Houwelingen for This and That Productions, which also produced “Operation Sabre” and Mirjana Karanović’s “Mother Mara,” which premiered at Sarajevo Film Festival.

The co-producers are Ines Vasiljević at Nightswim, Marina Andree Škop at PomPom Film, Ognen Antov at Dream Factory, Marija Perović at Kino, Srdjan Šarenac at Novi Film and Igor Vranjković at Cineplanet.