When Father Was Away on Business is a 1985 Yugoslav film by Serbian director Emir Kusturica. The screenplay was written by the Bosnian dramatist Abdulah Sidran. Its subtitle is A Historical Love Film. Set in post-World War II Yugoslavia during the Informbiro period, the film tells the story through the eyes of a young boy Malik. His father Meša has been suspected of working for Cominform and sent to a labour camp after a careless remark about a political newspaper cartoon. The movie opens in June 1950 with a local's serenading field workers. He sings Mexican songs because it's "safer",... and children climb trees and play around. The story is from the perspective of the boy, Malik, whose mother Sena tells him that his father is on a business trip. Malik is a chronic sleepwalker. After a while, Meša's wife and children rejoin him in Zvornik. Malik meets Maša, the daughter of a Russian doctor. He falls in love with her, but last sees her when the ambulance takes her away. At the wedding of his maternal uncle Zijah, Malik witnesses his father's affair with a woman pilot.
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| Release date: | 1985 |
| Directed by: | Emir Kusturica |
| Rated: |  |
| Runtime: | 136 Minutes |
| Producer: | Mirza Pasic |
| Editor: | Andrija Zafranović |
| Music by: | Zoran Simjanović |
| Cinematography: | Vilko Filac |
| Screenplay by: | Abdulah Sidran |
| Genre: | Comedy |