At a Prishtina ad agency, twenty female cleaners come together for a focus group about a new bleach product. Fatime, a domestic worker from the outskirts of town, shares a story that captures the attention of Elvira, the agency's head. Elvira offers her a job and Fatime, exhausted from years of informal labor, accepts.
If my daughter did not keep the honour of the family, this bullet gives the right to her husband to take her life, the first night of the wedding!
Life of my grandfather, an elderly man living with dignity in post-communist Albania despite his troubled past.
The story of Viktor Stratoberdha (1921-1991) mirrors many of Albania’s tragedies. Stradoberdha’s humorous, buoyant style led him to be one of the country’s most promising filmmakers. But after being denounced in 1956, he was expelled from the Kinostudio and sent into internal exile. In 1967, Stratoberdha directed a local theater play in which the economic five year plan was placed in a coffin. He was then jailed for the next two decades. Urime Shokë Studentë! is one of the surviving documentaries of Viktor Stratoberdha’s all too short career.
Shpend dreams that his mother wishes to see him before she dies...
Four female voices interweave a polyphonic narration of the tragic story of “Katër i Radës,” the boat that sank in 1997 due to the naval blockade imposed by the Italian government on migration flows from Albania. The relatives of the victims that were amongst the first to die, in their attempt to cross the borders of “Fortress Europe,” sail along the Strait of Otranto following the route of the doomed ship only to pose the questions ignored by the media and the judicial authorities.
Early years after the war. The bourgeoisie is falling, and they are being taxed for their profits during WWII. Abdyl is an accountt who helps the bourgeoisie and fascist collaborators by hiding their gold in his home and manipulating documents.
While the temperament of the minor Shukria is slowly developing, she shows us the primitive way of thinking of the patriarchal society and the role of the woman at that time until now. The story takes place in a little village in Kosovo. From her view, we are in a sort of “Paradise on Earth” where she meets her sister, her mother then even herself attempting to stop her marriage.
A young bride tasked with the trivial errands for her in-laws whilst her husband is in Greece, stumbles across a dead woman’s body whilst fetching the water from the fountain. Pushed to the side both the in-laws proceed to talk to the local news lying about finding the body and revelling in the attention they’re getting. A battle amongst the villagers to get coverage in the news ensues, and the actual crime itself becomes overshadowed. We see the young bride coveting the hair slide from the victim.
In the domestic abuse shelters of Kosovo, live women who have suffered unspeakable physical, emotional and sexual violence. An anonymous interviewee’s story plays against footage of the capital, Prishtina, giving voice to those who have remained silent till now.
A documentary about immigrants.
Flora, a journalist in a Western country, comes to her homeland to trace the early life/identity of Mother Teresa or Anjeza Gonxhe Bojaxhiu, to produce a feature. But soon she will face the surprise of her own identity. Two different lives, in search of their identities, so badly effected by the past, during the communist system.
The documentary has a descriptive nature and aims to promote the natural beauty and values of the mountain Sharr in the Macedonian part.
Perhaps the most chilling testament to the ruthlessness of Albania’s communist regime, this documentary presents a public trial in a packed cinema: four young men accused of industrial sabotage and listening to foreign music. In the finale, replicating the Stalinist show trials of the 1950s, the audience applauds the death sentences for two defendants, and long prison terms for the other two who absurdly also lose their voting rights. The ice cold Poshnja is a rarely-screened, forbidden film (it is not even listed on the Albanian archive website) and the sole directing effort of Albania’s leading film scholar, Abaz Hoxha.
Azem, a hotel security guard, drifts through a quiet, uneventful routine. Cut off from his home and family, he finds solace in the stillness of his job, until a brief encounter with a hotel resident unsettles the calm he’s built.
Film about the 1968 folkloric festival in Gjirokastra.
After a devastating earthquake, five lives are buried beneath the rubble-a mother and her child, a young man struggling to stay calm, and two strangers forced to trust each other. As time runs out, their only hope is rescue. If it comes.
A taxi driver takes advantage of a sleeping passenger while he keeps the taximeter running. He drives around town to scam the passenger. However, something sinister will change the taxi driver’s perspective.
We watch the story of a taxi driver named Tazi, who lives every day in the same monotonous routine. He constantly becomes jealous of other drivers who seem to have more vibrant and interesting lives. While he is driving and continuing his usual route, we discover an interesting twist. Tazi is in the taxi with another version of himself, the passenger who represents his alter ego. This passenger begins to take control and rebel in traffic. In the end, an accident occurs and we discover that everything was just a brief moment of imagination where Tazi has created this other alter ego to escape his daily monotony.
