Bota
Description
In an Albanian town where the residents claim nothing ever happens, secrets simmer just below the surface and the past is always present. Down-to-earth Juli, entrepreneurial Ben, and free spirit Nora run a quirky café/bar called Bota (literally “the world” in Albanian). Different as they are, these three strong personalities are held together by their connection to the place and its oddball regulars. Bota is the center of social life for a community crouched on the edge of a swamp notorious for hiding the bones of rebels disappeared during the communist regime. Long after the end of the dictatorship, local life is still stagnant, most too poor to seize the opportunities democracy affords. But progress is coming in the form of a highway construction project and change isn’t far behind. Co-director Iris Elezi was making a documentary in her homeland when she began collecting stories of Albanians whose families had been sent to labor camps during the dictatorship. With American-Albanian co-director Thomas Logoreci, she has painted a vivid portrait of three people whose individual lives reveal a larger story about modern life in the Balkans. —Laura Henneman
Iris Elezi (left) left Albania to pursue film theory and women’s studies in the USA, and completed the film production program at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts before returning to Albania to make the award-winning documentary series Under Construction.
Thomas Logoreci (right) was born in the USA to an Albanian émigré who fled the communist dictatorship in the 1940s. He has worked as a producer, editor and cinematographer with filmmakers including Caveh Zahedi, Jay Rosenblatt and Mark Cousins. With Elezi and archivist Regina Longo, Logoreci co-founded The Albanian Cinema Project, an initiative to restore and raise awareness of the endangered Albanian National Film Archive.
Trailer
//player.vimeo.com/video/122133505?autoplay=1Film Details
LanguageAlbanian
Year2014
Runtime104
CountryAlbania/Italy/Kosovo
DirectorIris Elezi, Thomas Logoreci
ProducerSabina Kodra, Andrea Stockovitz
WriterIris Elezi, Thomas Logoreci
EditorWalter Fasano
CinematographerRamiro Civita
CastFlonja Kodheli, Artur Goishti, Fioralba Kryemadhi