The
Albanian Cinema Project and the San Francisco Media Archive present Everything
You Always Wanted to Know About Albanian Cinema But Were Afraid to Ask, an
evening of specially selected and
extraordinarily rare films from the Central State Film Archives. Come and see a selection of communist era educational and instructional
films that have never been seen in the US; highlights from Albanian
filmmaker Fatmir Koci’s love letter to the Albanian film archives In
The Land of the Eagles, and the US premiere of Albania’s
film entry in this year’s Venice Biennale, the documentary short Concrete
Mushrooms. Help us save Albania’s endangered film heritage!
Date: Saturday, October 13, 2012 at 8:00pm
Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco
Admission: $10.00 in advance, $12.00 at the door. Limited Seating RSVP to programming@oddballfilm.com or (415) 558-8117
As in the rest of the Balkans, Albania’s post-WWII
narrative is of a communist partisan struggle against foreign occupation and,
ultimately, of a communist takeover. Dictator Enver Hoxha practiced a strenuous
form of Stalinism for nearly 50 years. As a result, foreign influence on
Albanian cinema was limited to minute cracks in the thick curtain that
separated Albania from the rest of the world. The almost complete reliance on
socialist realism in filmmaking during communism has caused many Albanians to
reject their own cinematic history as mere ideological indoctrination.
More than twenty years have
passed since the fall of Hoxha’s regime, yet there is still much resistance to
a re-examination of Albania’s state sponsored film productions. For this
reason, many have languished in inadequate vaults and are now in danger of
being lost forever. The Albanian Cinema Project is working to preserve and
restore these films and to open up an international public dialogue that will
encourage a global audience to view these films in a different light. The first
images of Albania on screen date to 1914. Albania has 100 years of cinematic
history that has yet to be fully acknowledged.
The
Albanian Cinema Project’s director Regina Longo will be on hand to answer
questions about the work currently underway in Albania to locate a new storage
facility for the films.
All proceeds from
this event will support the preservation efforts of the Albanian Cinema Project
and the San Francisco Media Archive.