In the 9th edition of PriFest, the European Program will have a total of 10 films, from which 6 will be regional premieres and 4 will be Kosovo premieres.
One of the highlights of this program is ‘Hunting Flies’, the first feature film of Izer Aliu, an Albanian director of Macedonian origin. ‘Hunting Flies’ held its premiere at the Toronto Film Festival. Although the language spoken in the film is Albanian, it is, in fact, a Norwegian production. Furthermore, this film was selected by Norway as its competing film in the Oscars.
The story takes place in a Macedonian village and revolves around the rise and fall of the dictatorship. Gani, a teacher, his rebelled students are the focus of the story. Gani the idealist loses his job on his first day of work. Faced with this situation, he tries to win back his job by locking all of his students in a room and trying to convince them to solve a long-standing conflict between neighboring villages.
PriFest will also screen the regional premiere of the film ‘ECHO’, a co-production between Kosovo and Germany, directed by Kosovar director Dren Zherka. The 93-minutete long story of loss and loneliness displays emotional conditions through the eyes of a woman in Germany - who sets off on a journey to explore the life of an illegal immigrant and ends up finding her own loneliness - and an old man - whose loss brought him to the end of his journey.
The international jury of the European Program will give ‘The Golden Goddess’ prize for the best European film, as well as the Special Prize of the Jury. The films of this program will also be evaluated by the Media Jury, which wil give the ‘Dritan Hoxha’ Prize for the best film.
The films that will comprise this program are:
This year, from July 13-20, the PriFest audience will be able to watch films at the National Theatre (two halls), the Open Air Cinema at the Zahir Pajaziti Square, Kino ABC and the other Open Air Cinema at the National Museum Amphitheatre. Tickets will cost 3 Euros, and can be bought at the National Theatre and Kino ABC. Film lovers also have the great opportunity to buy an All in one ticket which will enable them to watch any and all of the festival’s 76 films for only 10 Euros.
To buy this card write to us at [email protected] or phone the festival office +381 38 22 11 44.
In the following days PriFest will publish the names of the films which will comprise the other categories of this year’s edition, so save the dates and prepare yourself for a week full of films, debates and other activities which will make Prishtina the place to be this summer.