TIRANA, Oct. 29 – The Sworn Virgin movie by Italian director Laura Bispuri based on a novel by Albanian writer Elvira Dones opened this year’s edition of the Tirana International Film Festival, which along with the Durres film festival, are the two major international film events in Albania.
This year’s 13th edition of the festival will be showcasing more than a hundred international selections in the feature and short films categories as well as in the Albanian film competition.
“This 13th edition of TIFF 2015 brings several important changes to its previous years. For the seventh time, TIFF announces a feature film competition along with its prestigious international shorts program,” organizers say.
During the nine days of TIFF’s program, from October 28th to November 5th, in addition to competition shorts and features screenings, organizers have also scheduled retrospectives, seminars, master classes, press events and special presentations in several venues in Tirana.
This year, the festival will also feature a program of short films curated by the Italian Short Film Center. Within this selection, there will be some of the most successful Italian short films made between 2014 and 2015. “This is an important presentation for the Italian short film industry in a country like Albania which is going through a period of great cultural vitality and international openness,” says the Italian Short Film Center.
Agron Domi, the festival’s director says that TIFF has served as a promoter of the new generation of students who believe in the future of the Albanian cinema.
“Based on our 2003 slogan ‘Think different, see alike,’ I invite you to watch a selection of 120 films from all around the world,” says Domi.
Tirana Mayor Erion Veliaj describes TIFF as major event for the Albanian capital.
“Tirana is honored to host for the thirteenth consecutive year, through TIFF, a grand parade, a festival of 111 dreams and realities coming from 110 different countries. TIFF is indeed a world of ideas which color the small, black movie room,” says Veliaj.
“I am happy to see how TIFF is developing at a very high pace. From a short movie festival in 2003, today TIFF welcomes international feature films competing in famous international festivals,” he says.
The first and only international cinema festival of its kind in Albania, TIFF was established in 2003 showcasing movies competing in four categories including feature films, short-films, the Digiart, TV short film competition, and the Albanian short-film competition.
All the daily programs of the TIFF festival combine features and short films of all formats and genres – fiction, documentary, animation and experimental. On its daily agenda, TIFF also dedicates time to classes and seminars with professionals in the motion picture industry geared for Albanian film students and emerging filmmakers.
The aim of Tirana International Film Festival is, above all, to create a meeting point for filmmakers, artists and cinema enthusiasts from Albania, Europe and the entire world, to come together and share their common passion and knowledge of the motion picture art form.
