Another communist era movie to be restored

TIRANA, April 3 – After the restoration of the Nentori i Dyte (Second November) movie, a 1982 production of Albania’s communist Kinostudio film studio, the Albanian Cinema Project is planning to restore four other movies of 1960s and 1970.
Balle per Balle (Face to face) will be the new movie to be restored in the United States. The 1979 Albanian fiction feature Balle per Balle (Face to Face) is a pivotal work in the country’s sixty-year old cinema history. Made at the height of Albania’s Marxist isolation, the film was co-directed by Kujtim Cashku and Piro Milkani and based on a novel by the International Booker winning writer Ismail Kadare who also co-wrote the screenplay.
The film, based on Kadare’s opus The Great Winter, is a semi-fictional account of Albania’s 1961 break with the Soviet Union, which culminated in a tense standoff between the opposing armies at a submarine base in the southern port city of Vlore. For co-directors Cashku and Milkani, the David and Goliath showdown was a subversive way to deal with the emotional trauma of their nation’s traumatic split with Russia and the rest of the East Bloc.
The movie is being restored under the Albanian Cinema Project, an initiative to bring much needed awareness, attention and assistance to the current plight of the Albanian Film Archive.
Working with the support of the Albanian Ministry of Culture, the US Embassy in Tirana, the Albanian National Center of Cinematography, the Albanian Film Commission, the Association of Moving Image Archivists and concerned members of the international film and film archives community, the Albanian Cinema Project is dedicated to preserving, restoring and promoting Last September, a 1982 movie featuring Albania’s independence under the leadership of Ismail Qemali is being restored in the United States and be ready to screen in the Albanian Film Festival next November. The Nentori i Dyte (Second November) was restored by the Colorlab Film Corp., working in collaboration with the Albanian Film Archive and the Albanian National Film Center on the hundredth anniversary of Albanian independence. The new color 35mm print with a re-mastered soundtrack and English language subtitles premiered at the Albanian Film Festival during the week of Nov 3-8, 2012 and screened at the U.S “Festival of the Archives,” last December. Last summer, international film archivists warned the old film reels preserved at the Albanian Central State Film Archive are endangered because of the poor storage conditions in the building.
Regina Longo, a US film and media archivist is assisting the Albanian Central State Film Archive prepare a detailed report and an action plan to preserve its movie collection. The project involves a detailed assessment of the 35 mm collection, the preservation conditions, management and the Archive ventilation system.