ABOUT THE PROJECT

LOGLINE
25 years after a brutal war, a filmmaker and her father return to the village of Makermal, Kosovo, to make a film based on the father’s childhood memories. Confronted with painful facts from the past, they attempt to heal and regain hope with the villagers, blurring the boundaries between reality and fantasy.

SYNOPSIS
In 1968, Asllan, a 19-year-old Albanian political activist, was forced into exile, taking him away from his native Kosovo for over fifty years. Despite this forced separation, Asllan retained vivid memories of his past, telling his children stories from his childhood in the picturesque village of Makermal. With an innate talent for storytelling, he transports his family into an enchanted world.

Inspired by her father’s captivating tales, his daughter, Dea, decides to revive these memories of a suspended past. She embarks on an emotional journey to bring Asllan back to the village that shaped his identity. Back home with Dea, Asllan realizes that the village he once knew is no more: the old stone buildings have been destroyed by the unprecedented violence of the 1998 war, the old dirt road leading to the village has been adorned with an impeccable asphalt covering, everyone he spent his childhood with has died or gone into exile, and the cemetery has swelled with several more rows of graves.

Faced with this new reality, Asllan and Dea embark on a bold artistic quest to reimagine and stage Asllan’s stories in the new village. The villagers, who also have their own stories and memories of that time, join in this collective endeavor, bringing to life the customs and stories that marked community life in the ’50s.

As the stories come to life, a more painful past emerges. For Asllan, this nostalgic experience becomes a means of coming to terms with the tragic loss of his mother during the Kosovo war in 1998. Asllan attempts to understand the circumstances surrounding her disappearance, paving the way for healing and reconciliation.

PROJECT TYPE Documentary Feature

DIRECTOR Dea Gjinovci
PRODUCER Dea Gjinovci, Emmanuelle Lepers
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER Maida Lynn
co-producer Ilir Hasanaj

The Film Collaborative (TFC) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to providing programs and services for independent filmmakers. TFC’s federal tax ID number is 32-0295081. All donations are tax deductible to the extent allowed by law.

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