Initiative to ban communist-era movies meets strong opposition

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• An initiative by the state-funded Institute for the Study of Communist Crimes to ban the screening of communist era movies on public and private-run TVs because of their propaganda serving the country's former hardline Stalinist regime has sparked a public debate in Albania on whether such a step should be undertaken 25 years after the collapse of the regime and whether the ban will have the adverse effect of increasing interest on these movies which can be easily accessed via the internet. “I don't know what kind of educational role can have the propaganda movies sparking hatred among Albanians, promoting genocide with the class war, religion and the most important post World War II poets, films that invent saboteurs and pay tribute to the party-run trials, that fling mud on the bourgeoisie, Europe and the U.S.,” says Agron Tufa, the initiator of the idea.