“A work that grapples with addiction, punishment, faith, and the structures of control that promise salvation.”

The Toronto International Film Festival is sprawling enough that small discoveries risk being overlooked. Goran Stanković’s Our Father, which premiered in this year’s Discovery section, should not be one of them. It is a raw and often startlingly powerful first fiction feature from the Serbian director and it’s a work that grapples with addiction, punishment, faith, and the structures of control that promise salvation.

In Our Father, drug addicts are sent to a Serbian Orthodox religious rehab center, either by desperate parents or by the state, which allows men to choose the center as an alternative to prison. What unfolds is less about drugs than about power; it’s about men who have been abandoned by their families, society, and government, only to find a sustainable form of purpose in the discipline, ritual, and camaraderie of a secluded community.

An opening misdirect sets the tone. In a darkened, cage-like space, a man thrashes as if possessed. For a moment, it feels like a horror film, with an exorcism impending. However, it soon becomes clear that the man is vomiting, wracked by withdrawal. The man is Dejan, played by a tremendous and handsome Vučić Perović, who has recently arrived at the center. At first he resists the rituals of the center: he’s desperate for a phone, he scavenges for drugs from a newcomer, and he lashes out against the rules. Perović plays him with intensity, his eyes shifting between defiance and desperation, and his body caught between collapse and survival.

The center is ruled by Father Branko (Boris Isaković), a Serbian Orthodox priest who controls every aspect of the patients’ lives. Isaković makes Branko a figure of chilling authority. He’s paternal one moment, yet brutal the next. The state-church entwinement is crucial here, for to be rehabilitated is not merely spiritual but legal; the salvation is one of state governance as much as redemption. The men find purpose, work, and routine at the center, but they also submit to authority that demands total obedience.

There is a sequence that defines the film. Dejan, caught high on drugs found on a just-arrived newcomer, is forced to endure punishment. His supervisor Mionica (Goran Marković) is ordered by Branko to beat him with a shovel. The violence is harrowing, more than many prisoners in Western systems would normally face. Unknown to Branko, the beating is recorded and when the footage leaks, it becomes a public scandal and the turning point in the film.

Yet even before this, Dejan himself undergoes transformation. He adapts to the routines of the center, goes from loser to leader, and eventually becomes Branko’s right hand. His former resistance turns to complicity. Here the film raises its central question: what is rehabilitation? Is it reform, punishment, or deterrence? Does the center heal its patients or merely replace one addiction (to drugs) with another (to routine, to obedience)? Or does it just continue the addictive personalities and need to be controlled of the patients?

Stanković refuses easy answers and in interviews states that there is much complexity to these questions. Branko insists that if the center closes, the men will be lost, unable to function in society. There is truth in this as the structures have given them purpose. Yet what happens when rehabilitation becomes indistinguishable from submission? When routine supports and leads to the growth of autocracy?

The film’s thematic heft is based on a real-world event. About a decade ago, video footage surfaced of brutal punishment at a Serbian Orthodox-affiliated rehab center. The priest responsible polarized the public; some praised his tactics and others condemned the violence. Three years later he was charged with beating a patient to death. Stanković has said his film is not a direct retelling, but a portrait of what happens whenever an isolated structure (religious, political, or ideological) demands total obedience and dismisses individual thought. He says inevitably it collapses into autocracy, but crucially he also leaves space for complexity, as some men do reform, and some do find better lives. The center’s duality, both cruel and sustaining, remains.

Stylistically, Stanković proves himself a new director of notable skill. He uses long-held shots that capture the center and the patients, particularly during meals. The camera lingers, resisting sensationalism, allowing the lived-in detail of the center to emerge. Each space feels authentic, worn, and inhabited. Notably, his realism never tips into heavy-handedness. His background in documentary (In the Dark, 2014) likely has shaped his talents and textures, but here it is merged with a narrative precision that signals a director of real promise. Our Father should be seriously considered for film festivals that highlight new directors and voices in cinema in the coming year.

Our Father also resonates beyond Serbia. Its questions echo in the present global moment, as governments from Hungary to El Salvador to the United States pursue harsher and inhumane policies under the guise of reform or justice; civil rights are curtailed in the name of discipline, economic fairness, and order. For these reasons, Stanković’s critiques may be local in setting but are wholly universal.

By the end, Our Father emerges as one of the quiet standouts of the festival. It is not pretentious, or designed for awards season, but it lingers as an unsettling, provocative, and ambiguous work. For a first fiction feature, it is a commanding achievement. For audiences willing to look beyond the biggest TIFF titles, it is a discovery worth seeking out.