PRIFEST presents the line-up of the Main Competition Program – Balkan Feature Films

07.09.2023

We proudly present the line-up of the Main Competition program - Balkan Feature Films. 5 exciting films from the region, all premieres in Kosovo.

THE LAND WITHIN - by Fisnik Maxville Switzerland, Kosovo / Kosovo Premiere (118 min)
After years of exile, Remo, an orphan, returns to his childhood village in the Balkans. He must help his adoptive cousin, Una, with the exhumation of a mass grave that contains most of their family members buried there during the war. But the bodies reveal family secrets that will make Remo and Una question their past and their future. A film about the possibility of truth in a place that only knows survival.

SIRIN - by Senad Sahmanovic Montenegro, Albania, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina / Kosovo Premiere (90 min)
The plot follows Natali, who left the former Yugoslavia immediately after the beginning of the wars of the 1990s. Like many other people from this area, she emigrated abroad in search of a better life and a more secure future. After several years spent abroad, wanting to fully adapt to life in a new environment, she wished to change her identity and erase her origins. An unusual legal case regarding the inheritance of a rich elderly woman who did not have a family will bring her back to her country of origin, Montenegro

BLAGA’S LESSONS – by Stephan KOMANDAREV Bulgaria , Germany / Kosovo Premiere (90 min).

When a retired, recently widowed teacher falls prey to a phone scam, she’s left robbed of her life savings and without any money for her late husband’s grave. Her life turns upside down when she realises that there’s no way of gaining her money back, up until she receives an alluring, yet suspicious offer for work. The tables turn as she takes matters into her own hands and cash begins rolling in, this time claiming her most prized attribute: Her values, as she slowly and surely transforms into the scammer herself. In this eerie suspense drama, Stephan Komandarev ("Directions" Un Certain Regard 2017) chronicles step by step the journey of a woman swirling into the vicious cycle of the dog-eat-dog reality outside her window

ESCORT – by LUKAS NOLA CROATIA, NORTH MACEDONIA, KOSOVO / Kosovo Premiere (120 min)

While traveling for business, Miro spends the night with a sex worker for the first time in his life after someone sends her to his hotel room. After they’ve had sex, he finds the girl dead in the bathroom. A successful, happily married man and a father of two, Miro covers up the unfortunate accident with the help of two hotel employees. However, they soon start asking him to return the favor. At first, it’s small things but soon their demands get out of hand. The two accomplices in his “crime” suddenly play a major role in his life that will never be the same.

A CUP OF CAFFE AND NEW SHOES ON - by Gentian Koçi Albania, Portugal, Greece, Kosovo / Kosovo Premiere (99 min)

Two inseparable identical unhearing twin brothers in their thirties, after they discover that due to a genetic disease they will progressively, but irreversibly go blind, emotionally struggle to give to their intolerable existential conditions a different twist.

Welcome to the 15th edition of PriFest, from 12-17 September.

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