In the microcosm of one family and a small community that functions almost in isolation in the mountainous region in the north of Albania, important issues are being discussed that are inexhaustible and complex on a macro level that can easily be identified with the overall situation in the region, in the Balkans, but also in Europe and the world. It's a family story Paplekaj which was transferred to the screen by a director from Slovenia Marija Zidar through his feature-length documentary film "Reconciliation".
The audience in Podgorica enthusiastically accepted and saw off this achievement, which was shown at the opening of the 12th edition of the International Documentary Film Festival, Underhill fest. A full large hall at the Music Center and Montenegrin Cinematheque welcomed part of the crew of this regional co-production, including the director Zidar. In an interview with "Vijesti" at the very beginning, Zidar pointed out that she was pleased with the reactions and interest of the audience, as well as the media in Montenegro.
"I'm still processing how deeply this film resonated with you with all its layers, such as: confrontation with tradition, analysis of patriarchy, the role of religion, but also forgiveness and reconciliation... I followed the social and political situation in Montenegro, but however, I did not dare to expect this kind of response and reactions", she pointed out and added that she is grateful to be able to present her film live to the audience and witness their experiences, especially since "Reconciliation", like many other films, began its festival life during the lockdown -a.

"It is priceless that we can share our experiences at all. I am not sure what the distribution options are in Montenegro, but I sincerely hope that we will have the opportunity to show the film in some other places in your country", says the director.
The film follows the conflict between two families in the hills of northern Albania in a region where the inhabitants are believed to still adhere to the Kanun code and the customary law of blood revenge in the same way as they did in the Middle Ages, which the director deconstructs. By killing an eighteen-year-old girl Djiste Paplekaj the process of reconciliation, forgiveness, remorse, but also a dilemma with emotions begins, all with the help of mediators from the "People's Committee for Reconciliation". After several years spent with the actors of the film, a documentary is created that offers the audience a life, more layered and complex than any scenario.
The co-production of Slovenia, Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo has a notable festival life and several awards, and one could say that it represents a true allegory of today... Marija Zidar talks about the whole average, the actuality of the achievement in the time we live in for "Vijesti".
"Reconciliation" indicates by its very name that it is an important achievement that deals with an important topic - the process of reconciliation, but also dealing with the past... How did you "engage" in all this and how did you come to the specific story?
In 2013, professor Martin Berishaj, who lives in Ljubljana, told me that the topic of Albanian blood feuds has been discussed a thousand times, but never properly. That intrigued me to start working on the topic myself. I found a story about a country in transition to which, after the fall of communism and Enver Hoxha, who brutally eradicated tradition and religion for 50 years, began to restore the old value systems. But in a very specific situation: the new state and its laws were not trusted, the new democratic government fell in the late 1990s when the economy collapsed due to a large number of economic Ponzi schemes, and the country was on the verge of civil war. The mentality that you can take the law into your own hands has been restored, but without the rules and regulations that the old canon laws actually had. There was no continuity.
At the same time, something similar was happening across Europe. The populist extreme right offered simple solutions to the masses of disenfranchised people: the rise of national religions, the mythology of the glorious national past, the return to traditional and patriarchal values... In Slovenia eight years ago there was a strange situation in which both the social and political circumstances still seemed quite normal, but there was great frustration and dissatisfaction in society. I remember it very clearly. It was difficult to determine exactly what was wrong because of that superficial normality.
Slovenia was presented as a "success story" among countries in transition, but privatization went too far, clientelism became widespread, and social effects began to show. Apparently something was really "rotten in the state of Denmark", because last year Janez Janša formed a right-wing government, extremely authoritarian and populist, which capitalized on this dissatisfaction. Those were the topics that occupied me at the time. Of course, when we started shooting in 2014, the Kosovo director of photography Latif Hasolli and I decided to make the story personal and deal with specific people in this situation. We visited many families and researched many cases to come up with this one.
I must note that the film seems perfectly directed, with a predetermined script, good acting, movements, and actually it is real life or a part of life... How did these people accept you and how did the "plot" develop?
From the very beginning, I had the idea that this story should look like a feature film to some extent, not because of "aesthetics", but because so much of what was shown about blood revenge was actually a complete obfuscation of reality, and because there was very little emotional honesty in the reconciliation process. But our documentary method is observational, which is the most difficult method for a cameraman - long hours of filming, full concentration, physically demanding, you never know what exactly will happen. In the end, the editor also played a big role here Uroš Maksimović who found the right mounting approach and got the most out of the material.
The late bishop took us to the Paplekaj family Augustin from Vau Dejes who visited every household in the mountains every summer. The story was not yet in the media at that time. So, the initial trust was through the bishop. But in order for the family to accept us to stay there for so long, we had to earn their trust ourselves.
I contacted Gjin Marku, chairman of a non-governmental organization called the "National Reconciliation Committee", after I spent some time researching what these organizations and individuals who call themselves representatives of the old canon law actually do. Most of these individuals in Albania were persecuted by the state and accused of corruption, because they sold asylum documentation to tens of thousands of Albanians seeking asylum abroad; these NGOs would issue a paper saying you are in a blood feud, in exchange for money. The problem is that local mediators usually refer foreign journalists and filmmakers to these organizations and individuals for "reconciliation", whose interest was to keep the myths about this phenomenon alive. It was business.
We followed the family in Tropoja and Gjin separately for about a year and a half before the stories suddenly converged - the "intermediary" accidentally found out that we were following another case and decided to get involved.
In any case, I could never write a script for what really happened. I never once suggested to any of them what to do - in order to "get the story", we recorded what they wanted to show. I constantly consulted with the director of photography about the progress of the process, we analyzed the shots but respected the boundaries, not because I think it's the best or only method, but because it was a real conflict, there was so much deep hidden pain and resentment ... All the time I tried to put myself in their place: how would I feel if something like this happened? There are some moral and ethical boundaries, still. And as you say, the closeness with our protagonists was actually greater that way. I listened and (sympathized)... When we suffer, the fact that others sympathize with us is worth a lot. That's what my father said Gezim when I showed the film to my family: "If she hadn't been here, our pain would have died too."
You deal with the topic related to reconciliation, but through the Albanian traditional code, the Kanun, which is perhaps the first time that it is presented and explained publicly... What is the Kanun, how well-known is its interpretation and meaning today, and how complex was it to talk about it?
The Kanun has been written about and filmed many times, but this film shows its use and abuse in modern times - the complexity of reinterpreting tradition. I have built my own network of sources to avoid misinterpretations. It is really difficult for international journalists to get accurate information, precisely because their "gatekeepers" are topics, organizations and individuals who deal with the term "parties", i.e. reconciliation, on a declarative level, and who show "their" cases to the media, but have been prosecuted for corrupt activities, such as charging for false asylum documentation. They inflated the numbers and misrepresented the facts that appeared in foreign media at the time, while the state statistics are different. I also had the help of BIRN (Balkan Research Research Network) in Albania.
Another problem is that you can no longer call blood revenge (Alb. "gjakmarrja") an "ordinary" crime, which is also the opinion of several Albanian Kanun scholars I talked to. Traditional laws were highly codified and ritualized, but these rules are no longer followed. For example, the fact that children or women could be "targeted" was not part of the Kanun. Based on the investigation, I decided what and why to include in the film, even though the film tells the story from the personal perspective of everyone involved.
I wanted to break down a few stereotypes - about this subject that was often presented as either mysteriously exotic or savage, and also - about patriarchy. I've seen so many movies and stories that show women and children crying, but nothing about what really goes on behind the scenes during these male-dominated, women-excluded conflicts. We recorded it for the first time.
The situation was formed by the (unfortunate?) murder of Djista Paplekaj and continues to develop in the context of forgiveness, remorse, but also blood revenge, and also the image in society... What does the death of a young girl symbolize and is it really necessary to have a tragedy in order to discuss about reconciliation?
All the time I was trying to be the eyes of a person who was no longer there, if I may say so. In this process, the reconciliation mediator turns Djista into a "symbol", an object, in fact a source of manipulation in order to achieve forgiveness. If Điste had not been killed after a long-standing conflict, this would not have happened. But protracted conflicts almost inevitably result in casualties, and of course it would have been better if the parties had tried to reconcile before violence erupted. The whole region is full of such conflicts, on a macro level: it is denial of the past, different versions of events, current conflicts that arise because of a distant past where no one was present, lack of recognition of past crimes, disagreements about what happened, as well as different systems values... Or unspoken things. I find it symptomatic that no one in the film asks what caused the whole conflict.
How can any law, be it Kanun - custom, religious/religious dogma or state regulations affect the feelings of an individual or a community?
We are social beings, we all live in society and our behavior is shaped by its norms and rules, so of course social codes, religious, traditional, state and all others influence us. The film shows how difficult it is for individuals when there is no (social) consensus about anything: neither about what happened, nor about what value system to rely on to solve it. And this is the society we live in.
In the film, the "Committee for Reconciliation" acts as a "peaceful mediator", whose members have their own interests in everything that happens, including in the film. That "Committee" can be an extraordinary metaphor for some other organizations in the world or here...
He acts like many of today's politicians, populists with their own agenda. That "politician" can talk sweetly to people, talk one way and the other, choose and combine different value systems and move between them. But nothing is solved. He is a very modern figure and it was very important to include him. This situation was a gray area, and this is how populism works in politics, in Europe, not only in the Balkans. Populism is not a real political option, not even a real policy of the right. Whatever story or angle works best in the psyche of a particular nation - a mixture of religion, national mythology and reinterpretation of tradition, collective fears, is brought to the surface and sold to the disenfranchised masses. All the while they have their own agenda in the background and while people are arguing over religion or history, bad laws are being passed that bring good deals for big capital that will make the working class and their advocates even poorer and transfer public funds into private pockets.
Your realization has many layers and brings to light different "problems" or circumstances. It's hard to touch everything. However, patriarchy and a patriarchal environment seem to be the foundation of all this. How do you view the legacy of patriarchy in our region or in the world in general?
Slovenian philosopher Alenka Zupančič recently she used the term "economic patriarchy" for Western countries. It exists in a much more hidden way and concerns the position of women in this capitalist economy. For my PhD in sociology, I researched gender politics and labor politics. Across Europe, even in the Scandinavian countries, the distribution of what is called "care work", i.e. caring for the home, children, the elderly, the sick - unpaid work, is still extremely unequal between the sexes. It is hidden work, unrecognized in capitalist society. At the same time, just in the last few years, the demands of the market have increased dramatically, for both sexes, as well as, for example, the number of hours we devote to work per week, and gender inequality is high. Research consistently shows that the decline in traditional family arrangements has been very modest across Europe, with varying negative effects on partnerships and the family. For Slovenia, for example, research has shown that men share the emotional care of children, but all other care is still largely left to women. Values have changed, but practice has not. The populist solution is a call for a return to traditional family roles, which is ironic, because traditional arrangements actually still exist, with a double burden on women. But different policies are needed
What are your plans for the future, are you doing something new right now and how does the life movie continue?
I'm developing some new ideas, and I'm also very interested in the documentary series format. At the beginning of this year, I joined a group of Slovenian women directors, writers and producers to develop a feature series. "Reconciliation" will be presented at several more film festivals in Europe, but also in Australia and New Zealand: this year EFP (European Film Promotion) has teamed up with the EWA network (European Women's Audiovisual Network), and we are also proud that our a film chosen among ten exceptional European films by women directors and which will be presented at the 68th Sydney Film Festival.
Would you like to add something, tell the readers?
I must point out that I admire the director of the festival To Vuk Perović and the entire team of Underhill, because just establishing a documentary film festival is very difficult in the region, and only building such an engaged, loyal and large audience really deserves only congratulations. And of course, watch documentaries. (smile)
Film as an anatomy of conflict
To what extent can this film be connected to the context of the wars during the nineties in the former Yugoslavia, since it is also a "tragedy among relatives" in a way? How far have we come? Has the region reconciled today from your perspective when you observe the Balkans from Slovenia, one of the member states of the former federation, which is today one of the most developed in Europe and a member of the EU?
Sometimes micro stories tell macro stories. The denial of war crimes and genocide in the former Yugoslavia, then, thirty years later, not only are there no regrets, but war criminals are glorified as national heroes, national mythologies are reinterpreted and presented as facts, the Second World War is being revised... Recently, I in Belgrade from a progressive young man who certainly does not support Vučićev government heard that this film is a "double Serbian production" because Kosovo is our country in co-production. It is a blind spot because the Kosovo myth is exactly the mythology it is based on Milosevic built his nationalist agenda. Those were the topics that I was very busy with when I was shooting this film. In Slovenia, the Second World War is the focus of revisionism under the new government. Historical revisionism and national mythologies are not only "alternative stories" about the past, but also have a clear political purpose in the present.
I see this film as an anatomy of a conflict, a story where people do not speak the same language, the origin of the conflict is in the distant past in which none of the protagonists were directly involved, where the parties do not agree on how the event that took the life of a young person culminated , nor can any approach resolve the conflict now because different parties still support different value systems. In all of this, the emotional damage is irreparable. It also refers to two understandings of reconciliation: one where the conflicting parties would shake hands, but this is only possible if there is recognition and remorse, and the other in which you cut off all contact with the conflicting party, stop asking them to acknowledge your harm, that is, the evil that was inflicted on you, and continue with your life. And that is almost impossible when it comes to neighbors like in the movie, when the proximity reminds you daily of what happened, and opens up early and new conflicts. And so it is in the region. The film raises questions rather than offering simple answers.
When personal becomes professional
You followed everything that was happening with the Paplekaj family and through the mediation of the "Committee for Reconciliation" for several years. What was it like to balance professionally and personally while working on this film, especially in situations where you, as a woman, are somehow "threatened" in that "man's world" as Vuk Perović called it?
I wouldn't say I was threatened in a "man's world", if you think of the two sides of the family during most of the filming. When the mother, Vera Paplekaj, saw that the director of photography and I were not there just to "get" something, we were warmly welcomed into the family. Another issue was the investigation of corrupt practices of reconciliation NGOs. Whenever money is involved, a lot can be surprising. And the "mediator" Gjin Marku is the former head of communications in the Albanian secret service, so - a person with connections. There was tension here, however, that angle turns out not to be the main focus of this film. In the beginning, there was a danger of even getting to the location, because in that period there were occasional robberies with Kalashnikovs on the roads in Tropoja when we started filming. But those are other issues.
As thorough as research can be, and I feel and believe that research and facts are the foundation of a documentary, personally it becomes professional, because as a director you are trying to use your empathy to convey other people's experiences to the audience. Perhaps, after all this research, the emotional part was the one I was least prepared for. Conflicts are difficult to experience, but they are also difficult to witness. In some of the reconciliation mediation scenes, I felt sick to my stomach, finding them grotesque and apathetic. In the editing room, when we would cut the last reconciliation scene, which is very tense, I was under a lot of stress, reliving on a physical level everything that I felt while we were shooting. In those moments, similar experiences that you yourself have had and all the similar things that happen in your life echo in you. I filmed that conflict and thought a lot about this topic. It was a difficult story and I felt very responsible and emotionally burdened until the film was over. It helped a lot to watch this material with someone else, first raw with co-editor Marijana Kozakova, and then with my editor Uroš Maksimović, who edited the entire film.
Bonus video:
