A Film a Week - Bekim Fehmiu

 previously published on Cineuropa

Bekim Fehmiu was one of the finest Yugoslav actors of all time and the first one from Kosovo to surpass the language barrier and play in theatres all across the former country. He was also the first and one of the rare Yugoslav actors to have, at least at one point in his career, a shot at stardom both in European art house cinema and in Hollywood. He was also a man of principle who decided when, why and how to end both his career and his life. 

His life and career stand in the centre of Valmir Tertini’s documentary, which was also the filmmaker’s debut in the feature-length format. After five years in production, a premiere in Albania last year, and a tour of regional festivals, Bekim Fehmiu screened in the documentary section but out of competition at the 30th Sarajevo Film Festival.

Bekim Fehmiu is a typical biographical documentary in which the interested audience might learn the facts of its subject's early life (Fehmiu was born in Sarajevo, spent his early childhood in Skhodër, Albania, before his family settled in Prizren, Kosovo), his first acting steps (in Pristina's County Popular Theatre), his acting studies in Belgrade, his marriage with his colleague Branka Petrić and his national and international career in cinema, from his breakout roles as Beli Bora in Aleksandar Petrović’s I Even Met Happy Gypsies (1967), Odysseus in Franco Rossi’s mini-series The Odyssey and Dax Xenos in Lewis Gilbert’s The Adventurers (1970) onwards. We also get to learn about the status of the national cultural hero and the window to the world that Fehmiu enjoyed in Albania during the dark times of Enver Hoxha’s dictatorship, as well as the respect he had from his colleagues and filmmakers he collaborated with.

Most of the film’s 67 minutes of runtime goes to interviews (filmed by Endi Hoxha) with different people who knew Fehmiu and played a certain role in his life, such as his wife Branka Petrić, brother Arsim Fehmiu, filmmaker Goran Marković, writer Miljenko Jergović, late film critic Milan Vlajčić, and colleagues Faruk Begolli, Enver Petrovci, Branislav Lečić and Eleonora Giorgi, to name a few. Those interviews, against a completely black background, are constantly accompanied with music (credited to the star actor who managed to walk Fehmiu’s path later, Rade Šerbedžija) that switches genres and registers to fit the topic of the particular passage. Other than that, we can see some archival material from different countries, usually showing Fehmiu's screen successes and public appearances edited into the mix by Afrim Peposhi and Riza Vreko.

In the end, Tertini's documentary is a decent, respectful, but not exactly exceptional biographical documentary that could be a better fit for television than for a theatrical release. Bekim Fehmiu the documentary certainly respects Bekim Fehmiu the actor, the hero and the public figure, but it does not get beyond the surface in presenting his greatness.

A Film a Week - The Rise and Fall of Comrade Zylo / Shkelqimi dhe renia e shokut Zylo

 previously published on Cineuropa

The satirical novel The Rise & Fall of Comrade Zylo by Dritëro Agolli was very popular among readers right from its first publication as a series of columns in a satirical newspaper in 1972, and then as a book in 1973, as it mocked the incompetent officials in a communist dictatorship, while not questioning the system itself. Now, it is considered a seminal piece of 20th-century Albanian literature, but so far, it has not been adapted for the screen. This has now been put right by one of the most well-established Albanian helmers, Fatmir Koçi, who has been on the scene since the 1980s.

The Rise & Fall of Comrade Zylo world-premiered in the newly established Critics’ Picks competition programme of Tallinn Black Nights. Its topic and tone should go down well with audiences who have some historical knowledge about life under the communist dictatorship, while its purely filmic references to noir and the Nouvelle Vague work equally well in all contexts.

As in the source material, our point of view is established by the narrator and protagonist, Demka (Donald Shehu), a man who gave up on his dream of becoming a writer in favour of making a living by writing reports and speeches for high-ranking party officials. He is therefore bitter and constantly on call, and his wife Zenepja (Xhoana Karaj) therefore advises him to take on less work. However, he does not know how to break the cycle of being overworked and exploited.

His newest boss is our title character, Zylo (Alex Seitaj), a man with grandiose ambitions but limited capabilities. His ideas are neither original nor applicable to reality; they are just platitudes taken from the communist propaganda textbooks, so it comes as no surprise that they all end in failure. In his madness, Zylo is supported by his wife, Adila (Enisa Hysa), and his neighbour, influential journalist Cleopatra (Jorida Meta), while some other comrades in the committee cannot wait to see his downfall. It seems that Demka has no choice but to follow him wherever he goes, whether it’s to a remote village where he “preaches” the need to consume culture to the over-worked and extremely poor farmers, or to a country in Africa with which Zylo wants to establish some kind of cultural exchange. But then the plot starts to thicken on both the work and domestic fronts.

Agolli’s novel has been adapted into a script quite faithfully by the filmmaker himself in collaboration with Mike Downey and Jonathan Preece, who was the writer for his more international works, such as Amsterdam Express and Elvis Walks Home. The trouble with such faithfulness in an adaptation is that some things do not transfer well between the different media. For his part, Koçi tries to break the rigidity of the chapter-like structure with long, dialogue-driven scenes, by visualising the narrator’s thoughts and musings in black and white, and by using the styles of different historical genres, but nevertheless, this kind of structure would be better suited to theatre. Some other debatable choices would be the almost constant use of Karl Heortweard’s score in different musical keys and genres, and the broad acting by all of the cast members, although the latter actually suits the satirical genre of the movie. Meanwhile, the technical work that has gone into the production design and costume design faithfully re-creates the atmosphere and the feeling of the early 1970s.

A Film a Week - A Cup of Coffee and New Shoes On / Një filxhan kafe dhe këpucë të reja veshur

 previously published on Cineuropa

In 2013, two Belgian twin brothers, both 45-year-old shoemakers from the town of Putte, put on a new pair of shoes and had a cup of coffee with their relatives before saying goodbye to them and leaving to get euthanised. Although they had not been diagnosed with a terminal disease, they were already deaf and the new diagnosis was of a degenerative disease that would eventually leave them blind as well, thus their plea for euthanasia was approved.

The premise of that story served as an inspiration to Albanian filmmaker Gentian Koçi for his second feature, A Cup of Coffee and New Shoes On. The film has just premiered in the Official Competition of Tallinn Black Nights, and was picked as the Albanian Oscar entry even before the premiere itself.

Agim and Gëzim (Portuguese twins Rafael and Edgar Morais, respectively) are identical and inseparable twins who have been deaf since birth, which means they are each other’s primary companions. They live together in a flat in Tirana, where Gëzim’s girlfriend, Ana (US-based Kosovar actress Drita Kabashi), visits them on a regular basis. They work together in a carpentry workshop and spend their free time together, usually going to their cabin and the mountains.

One day, while driving back from work, Agim’s vision starts getting blurry, and he almost causes a fatal accident, so he goes to see his ophthalmologist. The diagnosis is not good, as he is about to lose his eyesight – and to make matters worse, the same will happen to Gëzim later on. The idea that, after a lifetime in silence, they will have to accept the darkness as well deepens the rift between them and the world, as well as the rift between the brothers. A decision has to be made, over a cup of coffee and with new shoes on.

A Cup of Coffee and New Shoes On clearly shares a lot of traits with Koçi’s debut feature, Daybreak (2017), as it is a carefully measured exercise in subtlety with a perfect mise-en-scène (as demonstrated in the opening scene of the routine that the trio shares), realised with great attention to detail. The plots of both films mostly take place inside flats, but A Cup of Coffee and New Shoes On cares even less about the exterior world, outside the bounds of the one that the brothers share, and is more focused on their emotional states.

Koçi also repeats the collaboration with his Daybreak cinematographer Ilias Adamis, who always faithfully captures the events and the emotions from the right distance, opting for static takes with some rigorously symmetrical framing. While the rhythm of the succession of usually long takes works perfectly in the beginning, thanks to editor Myrto Karra, the drop in tempo halfway through threatens to hamper the film; nevertheless, the intensity of the emotions between the characters keeps up the momentum.

Special attention was paid to the casting and working with the actors. The Morais twins were selected after an international audition call: they are professionally trained actors who are not deaf, but they still had to learn the Albanian sign language for the role. Their primary task of channelling the connection between the twins, which helps them conquer their impairments, is handled perfectly, while the presence of Drita Kabashi as Ana, a person who wants to offer them physical and emotional support, is also priceless.