TIRANA, Sept. 23 – Albania has selected the Bota (World) movie as its submission for the 88th Academy Awards for Best Foreign language Film in the 2016 Oscars.
Bota, a feature film directed by Albania’s Iris Elezi and Thomas Logoreci, was selected to represent Albania by the National Cinematography Center, winning over Amanet (The Last Wish) movie directed by Namik Ajazi.
The debut by an Albanian director and her U.S. husband weaves past and present in a powerful story of love and attraction, writes the Hollywood Reporter.
Written by Iris Elezi and directed by Elezi and her U.S.-born husband, Thomas Logoreci, Bota – which means “world” in Albanian — is a tightly focused story set in an isolated cafà© that cannot hide from the world.
Bota is the ninth film Albania has submitted for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film since 1996. None of the previous eight submissions has made it to be nominated for an Oscar.
“Yes! It’s official. Bota will be Albania’s representative film for the foreign Oscar race! Bota means ‘The World’ in Albanian and that’s what it has been doing so far, connecting everywhere souls allowed it to come,” wrote Iris Elezi on her Facebook page.
Bota made its world premiere in 2014 at the 49th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in the Czech Republic where it was announced the best film in the East of the West category. It also screened in competition earlier this year at the San Francisco IFF.
Other awards include a special jury prize at SEEFest, the South East European Film Festival in Los Angeles, and an audience award and FIPRESCI prize at the Reykjavik film festival. It recently, also won best feature at Pogradec’s Balkan film festival in Albania.
“The jury found Bota a remarkable film with a rich script, three-dimensional characters, exquisite photography of current day Albania and beautiful nostalgic music soundtrack of past heritage,” the Czech film festival said on its website.
“Bright and delicately framed, creating a blend of different shots, with just enough editing to allow the film to set its own pace, avoiding any tedious parts, Bota is a great surprise. The viewer gets swept away by a plot that takes a while to hit its stride, but that, in the end, succeeds in building finely shaded characters, played by a trio of charismatic actors,” says the movie review by Domenico La Porta.
“Bota (Albanian for “the world” ) is a cafà© situated on the edge of a vast area of marshland in a remote part of Albania, and it is here that the lives of the protagonists intersect in this compelling debut by Iris Elezi and Thomas Logoreci. The directors skillfully exploit the genius loci of the desolate landscape and, aided by a period score and beguiling long shots, they flawlessly evoke the atmosphere of a place where the past still encroaches upon people’s lives,” says the festival on its website about the Albanian movie.
