Zoran und sein Vater Vesa haben sich nicht mehr viel zu sagen. Der Sohn verbringt sein Leben mit einem kiffenden Mitbewohner, einer unerreichbaren Exfreundin und einem Job in der Nachtschicht einer Realityshow im Stil von Big Brother. Als Vesa an Leukämie erkrankt und Zorans Hilfe braucht, reißt das den Sohn aus seinem Stillstand. Nun sind die beiden Männer erstmals seit Langem gezwungen, sich miteinander zu beschäftigen. In ihrem alten Yugo Florida klappern sie Ärzte ab und müssen sich unterwegs mit lang verdrängten Gefühlen und alten Konflikten ebenso auseinandersetzen wie mit den Marotten des Autos.

Zoran and his father Vesa don't have much to say to each other anymore. The son spends his life with a pot-smoking roommate, an unattainable ex-girlfriend, and a job on the night shift of a Big Brother-style reality show. When Vesa falls ill with leukemia and needs Zoran's help, it pulls the son out of his stagnation. Now, for the first time in a long time, the two men are forced to engage with each other. In their old Yugo Florida, they visit doctors and have to deal with long-suppressed feelings and old conflicts as well as the quirks of the car.

It [a Yugo Florida] may want to inspire the sunny beaches of Florida and the heat of Miami, “but essentially, it’s the shittiest, crappiest car in the world,” he concluded. “So for me, that was the perfect metaphor for my main characters and their lives. Their lives are full of imperfections, full of things that they don’t understand and problems that they cannot fix, and they don’t know why. And that car is like that.”

Despite its rather bleak plot outline, the film proves surprisingly (if darkly) funny. For all the granular realism of life in Serbia, there’s always a touch of the absurd in Yugo Florida; for every grim slice of reality, a ridiculous quirk to bring the tension back down.

Zoran is lonely. At thirty-five, his life feels awkward, shabby, and pointless: he has a pothead roommate, an unavailable ex-girlfriend and a night-shift job on a Big Brother-like reality show. His situation takes a turn when his estranged and intolerable father is diagnosed with leukaemia, and Zoran devotes himself to trying to reconnect with him and helping him through his final weeks. Charmingly blending bleak realism with absurdist humour, the film portrays a family fractured by secrets, regrets and shame, where stubborn resilience clashes with emotional fragility. It offers a painfully relatable portrait of weary men caught between duty, love and despair, driving a Yugo Florida – a capricious car with a mysterious malfunction that no one can fix. A lovable debut with strong performances and a spot-on tone.