Tomka dhe shokët e tij

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Movie
Original title Tomka dhe shokët e tij
Country of production Albania
original language Albanian
Publishing year 1977
length 78 minutes
Rod
Director Xhanfise Keko
script Nasho Jorgaqi
production Nikollaq Taja , Albafilm
music Aleksandër Lalo
camera Faruk Basha
cut Shpresa Papapavllo

Tomka dhe shokët e tij ( German  Tomka and his friends ) is a black and white Albanian film by Xhanfise Keko from 1977. The plot glorifies the resistance of the communist partisans against the fascists  and Nazis  in World War II . It was produced by the “Shqipëria e Re”  cinema studio and is one of the country's most popular film classics.

action

The boy Tomka and his friends Vaska, Gëzim and Çelo explore the castle in their home town of Berat with their dog Luli after the Italian troops left. They collect left behind weapons and ammunition. Meanwhile, the Wehrmacht entered the city with tanks. On their hasty way home, they are stopped by a retarded Italian soldier who asks the children to hide him from the Germans. After he has entrusted them with binoculars, they take them with them. While the Germans drive over the Gorica Bridge , the five wade upstream through the Osum to their home in the Gorica district. The German troops occupy the city.

The next morning the children want to play soccer in a field on the outskirts of the city. The Wehrmacht is currently setting up a camp there. The children are disappointed and complain about the thieving fascists, swear revenge. In an emergency they play on the bumpy road in front of the barrier to the camp, but are repeatedly disturbed by the passing vehicles and some soldiers. An officer even incites the evil dog Gof on the children. On the way home the children cross two ballistae , which loudly mock them. The older men want to chase after the children, but are pelted with stones by the boys and get to feel the dog Luli.

In the city, the boys watch the Germans arrest an Italian. Back at Tomka's family's house, they bring a couple of cigarettes to the deserter hidden in the basement. The foreigner praises her for her patriotic actions. Tomka wakes up that night when his brother Luan, a partisan, comes home under cover of darkness. The boy secretly observes the conversations of the adults. The Italian is allowed to join the partisans.

The next day Tomka picks up laundry from the barber. He overheard conversations of adults who belong to the resistance: The partisans had inflicted a serious defeat on the Wehrmacht in an attack in a ravine. The children go to the market square in Berat, where profiteers sell goods that they have allegedly taken from families who were allegedly arrested and other victims of war persecution. The mood is irritable. After Tomka roused the merchants' horses and went through them and their wagons, everyone laughed at the capitalists who ended up in the dirt.

The days go by as the children play football at the field camp, bathe in the river or make stars for partisan uniforms. While the boys watched the fighting between the partisans and the Germans in the hills around Berat on one of the following days, they dream aloud of joining the partisans. But they are still too young. One night the foreign soldiers search all houses in the Gorica district: an act of revenge for the attack in the gorge. The fathers of the four friends, all of whom support the communist partisans, are able to flee from the Germans at the last second. Others are less fortunate. The occupiers also burn some houses down.

One of Tomka's friends meets a stranger in Tomka's family's house. It is the partisan leader Tomorri (like Mount Tomorr  in the area around Berat). Tomka brings messages for Tomorri, and the resistance fighters in Berat soon realize that they can use the boys for other tasks: They plan to raid the German camp and rely on the children so that they can carry out their plan without being noticed. While bathing in the river, a young partisan asks Tomka to quietly explore the camp. Above all, they want to know how far an underground sewer leads into the warehouse. Tomka and his friends climb a tree to count tanks, trucks, guns and tents in the camp. However, they cannot find the end of the sewer. During the game, Gëzim runs into the camp after the ball. He can see the manhole cover, but has to take a beating from the German soldiers. Back in their own neighborhood, the children treated their injured friend. Vaska's little sister Tefta helps - the little girl, long excluded, is gradually being accepted by the older boys. She had made it clear to them that women would also fight with the partisans.

The resistance group von Berat is ready to blow up the ammunition depot in the center of the German military camp. For this, however, they again need the support of the children. They hand Tomka a poisoned piece of meat with which the German watchdog is to be disposed of. Tomka and his friends split up: Vaska and Gëzim are standing Schmiere, while Vaska and little Çelo face the dog. After a moment's hesitation, he eats the meat and immediately dies of the poison. The four children meet again in their neighborhood, happy about the successful event.

During the night Tomorri, the Italian soldier who specializes in explosives, and another partisan wade through the river to the sewer through which they enter the German field camp. They manage to place the explosives next to the ammunition depot and light a fuse. You just made it back across the river when a violent explosion rocked the whole city. Tomka and his family, like almost the whole city, look out of the window and enjoy the successful act of the partisans.

Production and appreciation

The majority of the film was shot in Berat. In addition to the population of Berat, the armed forces of the People's Republic of Albania are thanked for their support and cooperation in the opening credits .

“Perhaps because the children's genre did not call attention to itself the way that adult feature films might, Keko was able to fill Tomka with many stylistic devices that would have been discouraged for higher-profile Albanian filmmakers. Tomka's opening tracking shot of the young barefoot protagonists who live under the Nazi occupation, signals a vitality missing from nearly all Albanian cinema of the era. "

“Perhaps because the children's film didn't generate that much attention, Keko Tomka was able to fill it with many stylistic elements that the elite of Albanian filmmakers would have been advised against. The opening scenes of Tomka with the young barefoot protagonists who live under the Nazi occupation shows a vitality that almost all Albanian films of this time lack. "

- Thomas Logoreci : The Albanian Cinema Project

Xhanfise Keko, the only female director in the country and often referred to as “Aunt Keko”, produced numerous youth films that were very popular in Albania. Her supposed youth films were less subject to severe censorship; she could work with aesthetic stylistic devices that others were not allowed to use. After “Tomka”, Keko produced two more films with spying children: Pas gjurmëve (1978) and Partizani i vogël Velo (1980).

"[...] the strengths of the film lie in the way in which Keko brought the children to a completely natural embodiment of their characters."

- Michel Bodmer

The film was restored in the USA around 2012.

The music composed by Aleksandër Lalo was played by the Radio Televizioni Shqiptar symphony orchestra  under the direction of Ferdinand Deda. The boys sing a song in two scenes. The dialogues of the Wehrmacht soldiers are all in German , the Italian soldier speaks mostly Italian .

occupation

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Tomka dhe shokët e tij (Tomka and His Friends). In: film.at. Retrieved February 23, 2020 .
  2. ↑ a b Keko's Kids: Where Are They Now? In: The Albanian Cinema Project. Retrieved February 23, 2020 .
  3. ↑ a b Tomka and His Friends. In: Filmpodium Zürich. Retrieved February 23, 2020 .
  4. ↑ Tomka Dhe Shoket e ij / Tomka and His Friends. In: The Albanian Cinema Project. Retrieved February 23, 2020 .