Vendetta - Obliged to kill

Besa: The Promise

July 2012 •English

A documentary exploring how Albanians, including many Muslims, helped and sheltered Jewish refugees during WWII at their own risk, and trying to help the son of an Albanian baker that housed a Jewish family for a year return some Hebrew books that the family had to leave behind.

Fragments of Humanity

January 2022 •Finnish

In the Kosovo War, human dignity was shattered by the terrors of the Serbian government and the Albanian liberation army. Truths about the victims’ fates faded away, which is why a Finnish forensic research group led by Helena Ranta got a mission to act as an unbiased agent and investigate the real course of events.

The Albanian Challenge

February 1971 •French

Albania is the country in Europe that Europe probably knows the least about. Underdeveloped yesterday, Marxist today, breaking with the Kremlin, in friendship with Red China, we hardly know more. For journalists, the country of Enver Hoxha is one of the most closed 'hunting' territories in the world.

Albánie – kráska se špatnou pověstí

February 2012 •Czech

A, B, C... Z

February 1971 •Albanian

Children get ready to start the first grade. They start learning the first letters.

The Undamaged

October 2018 •English

The Balkans cradles Europe's last wild rivers and supports abundant wildlife and healthy, intact ecosystems. These rivers are "The Undamaged" – clean, pristine, and undammed. With over 2,700 small and large hydro power plants planned or under construction in the Balkans, corruption and greed are destroying the last free-flowing rivers of Europe. Follow the Balkan Rivers Tour, a rowdy crew of whitewater kayakers, filmers, photographers and friends who decided to stand up for the rivers, travelling from Slovenia to Albania for 36 days, kayaking 23 rivers in 6 countries to protest the dams and show the world the secret wild rivers of the Balkans. The film honours everyday people and local activists who are fighting to defend rivers and aims to spread the word of the plight of these rivers, showing a new style of nature conservation that is fun, energetic and effective.

Stories of the Kosovo War

January 2019 •English

A documentary unraveling the untold stories and brutal experiences of the Kosovo War in the late 1990s.

KLLEZNA - PLACE OF THE TREE BRIDGES

Invalid date •Albanian

A short documentary about a small village in the city of Ulcinj, that has 3 bridges.

Dear Albania

October 2015 •English

Eliza Dushku takes on her homeland of Albania.

Dua Lipa: Elevating

March 2022 •English

One of the most recognizable voices in all of modern day music, Dua Lipa quickly rose to fame. Her catchy tunes and sultry vocals make her music appeal to a global audience.

Inchiodato

April 2005 •Albanian

Albania

January 1945 •Albanian

Made by the highly influential Russian cameraman Roman Karmen, this documentary vividly features Albanian life immediately after the communists came to power in 1944. The film is especially memorable since it’s missing much of the heavy socialist realism that marked Albanian doc making. Shortly after he completed the film, Karmen set off for Berlin to shoot the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany.

Here Be Dragons

August 2013 •English

Filmmaker Mark Cousins goes to Albania for five days, and films what he sees. He discovers that the movie prints in the country's film archive are decaying. In investigating this, Cousins begins to encounter bigger questions about the history and memory of a place. Perhaps a country whose 20th Century, dominated by its authoritarian ruler Enver Hoxha, was so traumatic, should allow its film heritage to fade away? Perhaps a national forgetting should be welcomed? Influenced by the films of Chris Marker, Cousins' film broadens to consider the architecture of dictators and the great icon paintings of Onufri. In the past, when cartographers knew little about a country, they wrote on it Here be Dragons. Albania was, for decades, one of the least well know countries in the world. Cousins' road movie meditation takes the advice of Goethe: "If you would understand the poet, you must go to the poet's land."

The Man Who Loves Gary Lineker

March 1991 •English

Follows rural GP Dr Ylli Hasani who risked imprisonment in totalitarian Albania by listening to the BBC World Service to keep up to date with world events, especially English football.

Anulloje Ligjin

November 2023 •Italian

A documentary that investigates the complexity of a nation, Albania, through the narration of the convoluted history of its monuments. What happens to the statues when they are destroyed, what are they replaced with and where do their marble shreds end up? What happens to their expensive bronze? And again: what do the sculptors who made these statues think of these destructions, what is their opinion. And today? Which statues are being destroyed in Albania today?

Gjama

October 2021 •Albanian

“Gjama” is a rarely practiced mourning ritual that was performed by Albanian men throughout the centuries. By shouting specific phrases and acting out a strict choreography, it is a way of paying respect to the deceased but also overcoming grief and pain over the loss of a loved one. Through the documentation of the re-enactment of the ritual, Zgjim Elshani seeks to recover fragments of the practice in the communities where this form of collective grieving is still a way of overcoming loss. By doing so, the project intends to rethink collective grieving and what it means to publicly display emotions in a male-headed society.

Shqipëria - Notes from Albania

January 2012 •Albanian

Mad dictators, trigger-happy mobs, archaic blood feuds - this pretty much sums up what Western Europeans know about Albania. But reality in this long forgotten Balkan country is much more complex and multilayered. SHQIPERIA - NOTES FROM ALBANIA offers a flow of stories from and about Albania, displaying the country in its true diversity, unspeculatively illuminating its conflicts and discovering this blank spot on the map of Europe in all its contradictions.

Albanian Heroic Women

June 1967 •Albanian

Documentary about Congres VI of the Women's Union.

Skutečná Albánie

January 1949 •Czech

Congratulations, Comrade Student!

January 1956 •Albanian

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.