The Albanian

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Movie
German title The Albanian
Original title Shqiptari
Country of production Germany , Albania
original language German , Albanian
Publishing year 2010
length 104 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Johannes Naber
script Johannes Naber,
Christoph Silber ,
Andeta Spahivogli ,
Alexander Steimle
production Boris Schönfelder
music Oli Biehler
camera Sten Mende
cut Ben von Grafenstein
occupation

The Albanian ( Albanian  Shqiptari ) is a film from 2010. Directed by Johannes Naber . The film was a great success in Albania, but was also well received abroad and received several awards in Europe . The film was presented to the public for the first time on June 28, 2010 at the Munich Film Festival . The cinema release in Germany took place on August 4, 2011. In Switzerland , the film opened in theaters on January 26, 2012.

action

Arben is a young man who lives with his parents, grandfather and brother Ilir in a village near Bajram Curr in northern Albania. Life in the mountains is hard, the family is poor and the men in the family are therefore forced to work illegally in Greece .

Arben is in love with Etleva, who lives in the same village. The pregnant Etleva can only marry Arben if he pays Etleva's father's debts of 10,000 euros as the bride price . Until then, she will be locked in the house by her family. He promises her to find the money and marry her before the child is born. With the help of a friend, Arben is able to immigrate illegally to Germany and after a long search and the help of his new friend Slatko, he finds a job in Berlin . However, his earnings are too low to be able to raise the bride price in good time before the child is born. That's why he lets his boss Damir persuade him to take on a better-paid but at the same time more dangerous job. Arben and Slatko are said to illegally drag immigrants across the Polish border to Germany.

Thereby Arben earns part of the 10,000 euros and sends it to his brother Ilir to Albania as a down payment for Etleva's family. But Ilir used the money to travel illegally to Germany as well. He meets his brother in Berlin because he and a friend want to realize his dream of a career as a rapper there . When the brothers meet and Arben is informed about the situation by Ilir, he is completely desperate and goes to the Polish smuggler who killed Damir in the dispute over the supremacy of people smuggling. Arben kills the tractor and takes all the money he can find. Then he returns to Albania with the money. But it is already too late. Etleva was taken to a psychiatric clinic in Tirana . Arben meets her there and painfully realizes that he has not kept his promise and that Etleva has given up on him because of it.

backgrounds

The idea for the film came up in 2001. Interview with director Johannes Naber: “At the beginning, Albania seemed interesting to me because of its proximity to Europe and its absurd history. After many years, the country has developed from paranoid Stone Age Stalinism to a turbo-capitalist media society. An enormous drop . I went there for the first time in 2001. With a minibus and a video camera. I was very impressed by the mixture of archaic and modern, the honorable pride and the unconditional hospitality that I found. The prejudices that prevail in Central Europe about this country are so wrong that another reason for this film was quickly added: to focus on Albania. The country needs a chance in Europe, and a lot of clichés have to be overcome. "

The film production was realized under the direction of Neue Schönhauser Filmproduktion GmbH and Boris Schönfelder as producers.

criticism

“Johannes Naber tells of the fate of a young man who leaves his home country Albania to find the money in Germany that he needs for his wedding. However, he quickly realizes that he will never achieve anything with mini jobs. As an illegal immigrant, all that remains for him in the end is a slow descent into criminality. Gripping, authentic drama with strong images and actors. "

- Cineman.ch

“Naber portrays Germany as a country without moral integrity, political concept or constitutional innocence - at least for all those people who are not considered useful and usable here, who are therefore not welcome. So the Albanian is a good film, but also stylistically very conventional and told in an expected manner, which in the end shies away from the decisive political or ethical consequences of its story and fled into the private sphere. "

- artechock

“'Der Albaner' shows an overlooked Germany that a German citizen usually hardly notices: fallow land and ruins next to glass palaces, junk stores in backyards. Naber's film leads into a shadowy world in which the utilization of people as workers finds its most radical form. [...] Illegality gets under your skin. This film does it too. "

- The mirror

“After the viewer experiences the living conditions in Albania as sparse, retrograde and raw, Johannes Naber shows a Berlin that is in no way inferior in desolation. Instead of tourist glamor, there are backyards and rubble heaps, there is hectic Advent, it is raining. [...] The motif of human trafficking runs like a red thread through the film. But it is the casualness with which brutalities like this are thematized that distinguishes Der Albaner. "

- Critic.de

Awards

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Official website
  2. ^ Peter Osteried on Cineman.ch
  3. ↑ Rüdiger Suchsland on artechock.de
  4. ↑ Jörg Schöning in DER SPIEGEL from August 5, 2011
  5. ^ Theresa Lachner in Critic.de of July 29, 2011