The Russian film Dad Croaked on Saturday is the feature film debut of director Zaka Abdrakhmanova, who has been working as a documentary director. The film was selected for the “World Cinema” section at the 29th Busan International Film Festival held in 2024, and had its world premiere. Zaka Abdrakhmanova’s film Dad Croaked on Saturday was the only Russian film selected for the 29th Busan International Film Festival.
Following its world premiere at the 29th Busan International Film Festival, the film won the Best Debut Film Award at the Russian Film Festival “Mayak” held on October 5, 2024, once again confirming the film’s acclaim from Russian and domestic critics.
Zaka Abdrakhmanova began her filmmaking career as a documentary director, and her documentary films have been screened or awarded at various documentary film festivals. In this paper, I analyzed the film Dad Croaked on Saturday based on its thematic aspects. This work tells about the return of the main character Aiko. who left her family and hometown a long time ago, returns to her hometown to attend her father’s funeral. However, Aiko feels like a stranger in her hometown, and the people in her hometown do not accept her but rather consider her a stranger. She also learns that her father, who was a monster who committed domestic violence against her mother, was having a happy family with his third wife. In other words, this work tells about the life process that Aiko must go through after returning to her hometown to attend her father’s funeral. Therefore, in this paper, I divided the narrative of this work into Aiko becoming a stranger in her hometown, the companionship between Aiko and Danik, the identity of Aiko’s father, and the birth of Aiko’s new family. In addition, I analyzed the cinema language of the film when necessary during the analysis according to the narrative development.