Directed by: Gentian Doda & Lorin Terezi
Country: Albania
Running time: 23’29”
Genre: Fiction, Experimental
Subgenre & tags: Tragedy, Drama, Social, Politics, War, HHRR, Human Righst, Women, Mediterranean, European, Author cinema, Independent cinema, Horror, Terror, Fantastic, ARTE, Artistic,

Synopsis

Before the fall of the Berlin Wall, in the remote mountains of dictatorial Albania, the Spaç political prison held its inmates under the most inhumane conditions. One day, a visitor arrives from afar, bearing news locked inside a wooden box.

Director’s Statement

My father once set off for Spaç to visit a relative. I couldn’t wait to hear his story. When he returned, the only thing he said was that the journey had been long and that the cold had forced him to wrap newspapers around his chest. Nothing more. But in his silence, I began to interpret. It felt as if I were eavesdropping on the people in that place, hearing exchanges of mute voices echo through the depths of silence.

The cold had frozen time itself. Identities had faded under the oppressive force of authority.

This memory, along with the testimonies of survivors, shaped this in-situ recorded film— a testament that the atrocities of the Re-Education Unit No. 303 – Spaç Prison, like many other political prisons of the 20th century, were not inevitable, but human-made.

• Gentian Doda