Discoveries from Albania World Cinema

Alberi's family takes a vacation to separate Alber from his actress girlfriend and to convince him to break up with her.

Aleksandër Moisiu, or Alexander Moissi or perhaps Alessandro Moissi (1879-1935) was an Albanian born stage and screen actor who performed all over the world. He was an actor with subtle resonances, effectively touching the tragic characters, establishing himself in those with the most intimate and delicate notes. Streets are named after Alexander Moissi in Berlin, Salzburg and Vienna, where also a monument was unveiled in 2005.

Katërmbëdhjetë vjeç dhëndër (English: A Bridegroom at Fourteen) is an Albanian play by Andon Zako Çajupi. The four-act comedy was written in 1902 and published posthumously in 1930. The work, which was considered a critique on the custom of arranged marriage, was adapted to film in 1987.

Blerta, captain of the volleyball team, loves Miri, the driver of the cooperative. The nephew of the cooperative chairwoman is also called Miri and he lives in Tirana. Uan Suka, a servile troublemaker, convinces the farther of Blerta to engage his daughter with the nephew of the chairwoman. The confusion solves when the nephew of the chairwoman comes in the cooperative.

The money that people had collected to finance the war were entrusted to Kiço. After the liberation, nobody remembers the treasure, but Kiço reminds everyone, delivering the treasure without taking anything for himself.

Film set on the 8th of November 1941, the day the Albanian Communist Party was founded.

Somewhere in Albania, 2018. A couple decides to get married but clashes with tradition hard to die.

During WWII, Qemal Orhanaj exposes the attempts of the pseudo-democrats and traitors of the country to create their government backed by the Nazis.

It is summer, a day in the life under the blistering heat. This is an archival journey through different pairs of eyes and different layers of skin - all in the hopes of finding someplace to sit and do nothing, while the world around you always wants you to do something.

War film written and directed by Rikard Ljarja.

Biopic about the patriot and political activist Avni Rustemi.

As half of a pill melts into a glass of water, Erik finds himself in a school and immediately gets a crush on a girl named Ela.

A couple of foresters living in the snowing mountains of Rugova get stuck after a blizzard.

A dramatic depiction of honor, family feuds and thousand-year-old traditions. In Albania, the tradition of avenging an injustice according to the motto "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" still lives on. This has led to people being trapped in their homes for fear of being murdered due to a family feud.

Based on a novel by Ismail Kadare. A group of partisans is tasked with reestablishing Radio Tirana.

"Gjuha e re" is an attempt to capture the communicative exclusion experienced by an Albanian immigrant in Greece. It is minutes of anger towards the dominant languages of a place. An untranslated poem with "bad accent" and "fake" words.

A story of three Albanians who meet on the Albania-Kosovo-Macedonia border. Each of them wants to flee their country, but where will they go?

A young pharmacist enters into a casual relationship with a young woman alleged to be his father's secret mistress, in contemporary Tirana.

A film about the Italian troops leaving Vlora and Albanian partisans finally entering the enemy camp.

Little Fatmir, whose parents have worked in a construction site, dreams of building himself a town. In his efforts to make his dream a reality, the kindergarten teacher and a workman who brings in working tools for all his friends, assist him. Within the courtyard of a kindergarten, the newest town in the world is thus erected, where children's dreams and characters are revealed.

World War II. Italian fascists have interned in the South a lot of people who fought them on the 7th of April 1939 when they came to Albania. Among them, there's an old man whom they call "Daja" (uncle), who fought along with the youth.

Animation tribute to Henri Matisse and the fauvist movement he started (fauvism). “Les Fauves” is crafted to recreate the paintings of the famous French artist. Through various animation techniques and real-life footage, the film is a tribute to life, art and all the innocent people killed by blind violence of any kind. Restored by the Central State Film Archive and the Center of Contemporary Art Harabel, financed by ABI Bank

Film set during the Albanian Renaissance, focusing on a group of Albanian outlaws fighting against the Ottoman Empire.

"Sons of Cain" is set in a small village in northern Albania. In this place time is suspended and the severe rules of an old code (Kanun) still dictate the life and death of the inhabitants. A group of seven children obliged to live under this code meet and discuss the story of Cain and Abel. Creating their own dream space, partially consciously and partially not, they create an analogy between their own stories and Bible stories. Stuck on the fine line between reality and forgetfulness, this is one of the few chances they have to come to grips with their traumas and emotions.

The two Albanian filmmakers Vani and Kaçi are invited to attend the Venice International Film Festival. They have been close friends since childhood until now on their 60's. At the beginning of the trip from Bari to Venice, they meet two actresses who working in the adult movies industry. From this moment on, the four of them continue the trip to Venice together wich brings a lot of turmoil for the unequal travel company of two conservative Albanians and two open-minded ladies with such different views of life.

Documentary about the Albanian impressionist painter Vangjush Mio.

A successful businessman womenizer has to find a solution when all three women that he is having an affair with happen to be in the same house at the same day.

Petrit works as a cleaner in the Ministry of Internal Affairs during the fascist occupation of Albania. There, he learns many secrets and helps the resistance with inside information.

A story about a little boy who lives in Tirana, the capital of Albania.

Set in the early 18th century, the film follows Andrea Selenica, a gifted painter whose independence and refusal to bow to church authority place him on a collision course with the clergy. As intrigue and betrayal close in around him, he is driven toward a tragic fate.

Documentary about the soprano Tefta Tashko Koço. It uses only photographs of her, as well as short interviews with various friends of her. Although the audio is not perfect, you can enjoy many fragments from her songs.

Igor Stravinsky composed Elegy for Viola in 1994 “so that Germain Prévost could play it in memory of Alphonse Onnou, founder of the Pro Arte Quartet”. Tribute and lament, the piece is played here by Gérard Caussé, assisted, if one can say so, by a garden banded snail. Riding the bow, the gastropod goes from the bottom to the top of the stick during the music. The title, which is a logic expression that imposes a double condition simultaneously, points to the link between animal and human, between music and silence, between seeing and listening, between two astonishments, two sliding virtuosities.

Mirela is an animated short educational film for children produced by ‘New Albania’ film studio complex (Kinostudio).

A group of partisan girls and women go on a journey in order to take part in the first Congress of the Anti-Fascist Women in Berat.

Bela, a young bride, is being escorted to the house of her new husband, Gani, who will soon leave to become a partisan.

Dino Bregu, head of a state farm, learns that Ilir, his successor, is having a relationship with his daughter, and must cope with this situation.

Sala didn’t paint the Tirana facades in Dammi i Colori (Give Me the Colors), in his current show. Others did, as part of an ongoing project initiated by Edi Rama, the city’s mayor and a former artist.

At the center of the film is a patriot photographer, who sees how the city moves on the eve of invasion by focusing his camera at the heroic resistance of the people.

A nephew takes care of his lonely aunt after her husband passes away. Problems and misunderstandings arise as she starts adapting to this new lifestyle.

Lana is abandoned by her fiancee only seven days before her parents are set to come and visit from Greece. During this frantic week, Lana reconnects with her old boyfriends hoping to find a possible substitute.

An elderly couple comes to the aid of a young maid from their son, but the elder daughter does not like her and decides to investigate by revealing that she hides a terrible secret that pertains to her intimate life regarding the elderly family.

Tili is a troublesome kid who always bothers his teacher and parents. However, they try to make him change his ways.

A father who is old and on his death bed calls his elders son, Bardhi. He advises his son that effort and hard work will ensure him a better future for his family. For the old man, land is everything. Just after the father dies, the younger son, Lis, turns up in the village. Lis has lived for eight years in the west European county and has lost contact with his family. The real reason he has returned is to sell off some of the family's land to pay off his debts to some characters from the underworld.

The year is 1941, World War II is going on. Vaso returns to his village, helping the revolt of the villagers against the enemy. Marko, his brother, wants to get revenge against the people who took his fiancée. This revenge becomes part of the overall revolt.

“Prizren - the City of Resources and Beauty” is a documentary directed by Zvonimir Saksida and produced by Zastava Film in 1972, which presents the history, traditions and beauties of Prizren with the aim of promoting the touristic potential of the city. Discovered in the Lumbardhi Cinema archive, it was screened for the first time during the exhibition “At Once Vague and Unavoidable: Modernities 1945-1989” produced as part of the partnership between Lumbardhi Foundation and Oral History Initiative within the project “Prizren Urban Memoryscapes” supported by Franco-German Cultural Fund, the French Embassy, the German Embassy, Municipality of Prizren and Sharrcem. The restoration and digitization of “Prizren - the City of Resources and Beauty” was made possible by the partner of the project, the French National Audiovisual Institute - INA and the French Embassy.

The starting point is an excerpt from the Albanian feature film "Qyteti me i ri ne bote" (Xhanfise Keko 1974, EN: "The Youngest City in the World"), in which a boy dreams of a modern city where progress and change are represented by construction and sealing. The film revolves around the historical and current transformation processes of urban space and reflects on the power of images, historical and contemporary utopias, and their interplay with architecture. An essay on new and contemporary utopias and their interplay with architecture. The film revolves around the historical and current processes of transformation in urban space and reflects on the power of images, historical and contemporary utopias, and their interplay with architecture. An essay on new and old regimes, power, propaganda, and the accessibility of public space.

BESA vividly portrays how individual Muslims, Christians and Jews of Balkan Peninsula were able to overcome their ethnic and religious hatred in an intense hardship time of World War II. All this resulting in escape and survival of Irene, a Jewish woman running from Nazi prosecution.

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.

Yustina's sister Polina is missing. She left their rural village in Kosovo to find work for them both in a land far far away - The land they call Sweden. But then the letters stops coming. Yustina knows that she has to go look for her sister. Yustina's journey will be filled with danger and foreign places, and in order to cope with the brutal reality, she uses her imagination to create her own world. A world where the people that has imprisoned her sister are monsters that only she, using her magical powers, can defeat.

Llano Bleta's individualistic spirit for a more comfortable life for himself makes him cut ties and trample on the sentiments of his loved ones and coworkers. This moral degradation in also evident in his new job.

Musical film. A young couple is getting married. While going to the bride's house, the husband and his family go through several cities, which are getting ready for the folklore concert of Gjirokastër.

Documentary about the Albanian writer.

Film about the 1968 folkloric festival in Gjirokastra.

This is a tale of family issues that emerge due to a shift in lifestyle upon moving to a new country, driven by a strong aspiration to improve their circumstances. Shaqa and Selvia opt to challenge their sense of "morality" in pursuit of a brighter future. Conversely, Giovanni's unintentional involvement steers their chosen path in an unforeseen direction. However, their journey does not culminate as they initially anticipated.

Albania's top censorship institution of the 1970s - Comrade Zylo is a genius bureaucrat. He orders the talented writer Demka to draft a speech on ideological issues. Demka realizes that he has become a slave to a Machiavellian propaganda master of his superior. In this absurd world, Demka falls in love with Zylo's wife, Adila.

A father finds refuge in memories created together with his daughter, who has been stricken with an illness. She has decided to keep her distance from him and they have not spoken for years. The film encourages her to reconsider her decision.

After a thirty year absence, Sana, now in her fifties, is surprised by the sudden return of her long lost love, Gori. Even though she has been waiting for this moment her entire life, she can scarcely believe her eyes.

Set during World War I. An Austro-Hungarian expedition sets an archaeological site in the ancient city of Apollonia. The experts of this expedition want to steal ancient monuments, but the villagers of the area oppose them.