“We are thrilled to present an expanded slate of competitions at DokuFest this year, with films that paint a picture of contemporary world in such a brave, provocative and honest way,” says Veton Nurkollari, Artistic Director of DokuFest
TIRANA, August 6 – Seven Albanian movies are participating in this year’s edition of the Dokufest, Kosovo’s largest film festival held in the historic town of Prizren, close to the Albania-Kosovo border. Albania is participating in the event with five short films competing in the National Category, another short-film in the Youth category and the newly restored Nentori i Dyte (Second November) movie, a 1982 production of Albania’s communist Kinostudio film studio, restored by the Albanian Cinema project in the United States . The movie will feature in the festival’s special presentations category. The Albanian shortlisted films are directed by Iridit Kaso, Violana Murataj, Tan Kazazi, Florenc Papas, Lendis Shkalla, Astrit Hykaj and Viktor Gjika.
“The closing night of DokuNights will bring you the sorrow and bliss of love, homeland, freedom, longing and poetry,” organizers say of the Elina Duni Quartet who will perform on 25th of August in Prizren as a closing event of DokuNights!
Originally from Albania, Elina arrived in Switzerland at the age of 11 and currently lives in Bern. She explores the music of Albania in earnest, digging deeper into the country’s troubled history, uncovering many songs of real beauty and power, older songs from her homeland and from its vast Diaspora mixing jazz and folk music.
The Festival, which will be held from August 17 to 25 on August kicks off with the screening of the highly acclaimed film ‘Stories We Tell’ by Sarah Polley at the Lumbardhi Open Air Cinema. Most of the directors from Balkan and National competition will also be present, as will directors and producers of films from Short competition. In total more than 100 filmmakers are expected to attend the festival.
“We are thrilled to present an expanded slate of competitions at DokuFest this year, with films that paint a picture of contemporary world in such a brave, provocative and honest way. Films about bees, ships, the cat name Baby, Black Sea pirates, Balkan matchmakers, punk girls in balaclavas or mass exodus are only part of eclectic selection of films in competitions and we are looking forward to share these and other films with our audience in August,” said Veton Nurkollari, Artistic Director of DokuFest.
Now in its 12th edition the festival will present more than 150 films and a slate of live music acts under its DokuNight music strand. Films are screened twice a day in three open air cinemas as well as in two regular cinemas. Except for its films, the festival is also well-known for lively nights after the screening. Various events happen within the scope of the festival: workshops, DokuPhoto exhibitions, festival camping, concerts, which altogether turn the city into a charming place to be.
Homage to Chris Marker
This year, Dokufest organizers are paying tribute to French master filmmaker Chris Marker, who passed away on July 2012, through a mini-retrospective.
Chris Marker was a writer, photographer, documentary filmmaker, multimedia artist and film essayist who is most often associated with the Left Bank Cinema movement of the late 1950s and was defined as unclassifiable and truly unique by some of his contemporaries. Over the course of his seven-decade career, Marker established himself as one of the most visionary and influential artists of the post-war era with his ruminations on the mysteries of memory, the nature of time, and the language, meanings and power of both the still and the moving image. Marker has revolutionized documentary and produced films that question the definition of the genre and challenge its limits.
Consisting of 4 films, the retrospective will include the remarkable film-essay on the worldwide political wars of the 602 s and 702 s and the fate of the New Left entitled Le Fond De L’air Est Rouge, Marker’s short film 2084 in which he critiques, from a Socialist perspective, the role of the trade union movement in France at the dawn of the era of global web economies, L’ambassade – his anecdotal response to Pinochet’s 1973 coup d’굡t in Chile and Puiqu’on Vous Dit Que C’est Possible exploring the revolution of the working class.
