Berlinale Spotlight – Forum Expanded & Berlinale Shorts: „Mua besoj më shpëtoj portreti & Prekid vatre“

In the organizer's words:

Film 1: Mua besoj më shpëtoj portreti / I belive the portrait saved me
25 years after his deportation during the Kosovo war, the painter Skender Muja remembers a decisive moment of survival. In the final months of the war, Muja and many other Albanian inhabitants of Mitrovica were captured while trying to flee Kosovo. They were held in a school that had been turned into an internment camp, terrified and facing an uncertain fate. One day, a Serbian police commander gave Muja a terrifying ultimatum: to draw the commander's portrait on a blackboard. "If it's good, you'll be spared. If not, I can't guarantee anything," he warned him. Under immense pressure, Muja began to draw. He was aware that his life depended on his artistic ability. The film alternates between two perspectives: Muja drawing the portrait and the tense faces of his fellow inmates. When the commandant approves the drawing, Muja believes that it has saved his life. Through Muja's narrative, Mua besoj më shpëtoj portreti explores the power of art in the most oppressive of circumstances.

Film 2: Prekid vatre / Ceasefire
Hazira survived the massacre in Srebrenica. She has lived in the Ježevac refugee camp near Tuzla for 29 years. She was never able to return to her home village in the mountains above Srebrenica. Today it is located in Republika Srpska, the Serbian part of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The political and social conditions force Hazira to wait, her days are characterized by routines that ensure survival. She collects firewood, cleans obsessively and defies the harsh conditions of camp life. With black humor and quiet resilience, she faces the trauma of a war that continues to define her life. To prevent it from becoming too painful, Hazira is constantly on the move, always on the run from her memories, but also from the present and the fear that everything could start all over again. This state of affairs is symptomatic of the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina today. 2025 marks the 30th anniversary of the genocide in Srebrenica and the end of the war in the former Yugoslavia. The film is a tribute to all those people who are still suffering from the consequences of this war.

PROGRAMME

Welcome

Dr. Gundula Bavendamm, Director of the Documentation Centre Flight, Expulsion, Reconciliation

Ulrich Ziemons, Head of the Forum Expanded section, Berlinale

Film screening

Film 1
Mua besoj më shpëtoj portreti
By: Alban Muja (director, screenplay)
Country: Kosovo / Netherlands 2025
Language: Albanian with English subtitles
Duration: 10 minutes
Berlinale Section: Forum Expanded

Film 2
Prekid vatre
By: Jakob Krese (director), Meta Krese (writer)
Country: Germany / Italy / Slovenia 2025
Language: Bosnian with English subtitles
Duration: 30 minutes
Berlinale Section: Berlinale Shorts

Film talk

Alban Muja (Director Mua besoj më shpëtoj portreti)

Annika Mayer (producer and editor Prekid vatre)

Moderation: Borjana Gaković (film and media scholar)

FURTHER INFORMATION

Admission time: 5.30 pm

Language: English

FREE ADMISSION

WITH REGISTRATION

The Berlinale Spotlight: Forum Expanded & Berlinale Shorts is a cooperation between the Documentation Center Flight, Expulsion, Reconciliation and the European Film Market (EFM) of the Berlinale.