Albanian Film Director Piro Milkani in Valencia: ‘The Sadness of Mrs. Snajdrova’, Big Hit with Valencian Public

Veteran Albanian film director Piro Milkani presented his film The Sadness of Mrs. Snajdrova at the 29th Valencia ‘Mostra’ film festival this week.
Piro Milkani, who made his first film in 1968, was in Valencia along with distributor Gianfranco Liuzzi and actor Nik Xhelilaj.
The film deals with the relationship between a young Albanian doing film studies in Prague, where the film was made, and the wife of the chief of police.
The film is a criticism of the Albanian dictatorship, which forced 50,000 of its students to return home from their foreign studies to serve the regime.
Piro Milkani pointed out during the press conference in Valencia that in Albania only two films are made per year with subsidies that cover 70% of the budget. The rest has to be found abroad.
The film has been selected to represent Albania in the non-English language section of the Oscar Awards.
Ms Milkani pointed out in an interview that “Albania is a European country and Albanians, I do not know why, especially love the Czech Republic, or they loved Czechoslovakia. More than a thousand Albanians once studied in the former Czechoslovakia.”
He described the film as “a contribution to European culture. This is the first Czech-Albanian co-production during the one hundred and ten years of the history of cinematography.”
One of his collaborators on the project was his own son, Eno. He stated that: “Eno has a fresh perspective on the latest developments in the film language. The best ideas were his. Without Eno as a co-director and editor, it would be impossible to make a movie like this. If you had a chance to see his film “Abandoned Eden,” you would understand who and where Eno is in our film.”
This year’s festival will be projecting over 160 films and has invited French star Isabel Huppert as its special guest. The organisers will also pay a special homage to Paul Newman. Among the new films on show will be contributions from Taiwan, Morrocco, Brasil and Japan.