Tristan Halilaj

The Forgiveness of Blood

A seventeen-year-old boy and his younger sister’s dreams and aspirations are put on hold when their father is accused of murder.

Looking for Venera

Living in a crowded, multi-generational household in a small village in Kosovo, the quiet teenager Venera can rarely find privacy. However, when she befriends the rebellious Dorina, a new, liberating world opens up to her. Slowly, Venera begins to push against her conservative family’s expectations.

Sheets

A family surviving in a totalitarian dystopia is faced with the dilemma of reporting a family of immigrants who suddenly seek their help or preserve human dignity by endangering their own safety.

A Short Trip

Mira and Klodi, a young Albanian couple arrive in Marseille with a crucial mission. As they face a fateful appointment and a room full of waiting men, time is of the essence. As they confront the urgency of their choice, they must also confront the growing need to let go of each other.

Phantom Youth

Zoe and Volta, childhood friends from a remote village, move to Pristina to pursue their studies. Full of dreams and youthful idealism, they befriend a group of rebellious, anti-establishment activists determined to make their voices heard. Amidst the social and political tensions of Kosovo in 2007, on the brink of independence, they navigate a country in turmoil—one searching for its identity while its youth remain overlooked.

Field of Blackbirds

Syla, a tortured former political prisoner from Kosova, realizes that his political idealism destroyed his life. After twenty years of mundane life in London, he returns home to confront his troubled past.

The Delegation

In 1990, a European delegation comes to Tirana to monitor the reforms of the communist regime. A government official is sent on a mission to a faraway prison in order to bring an important dissident back to the capital.

The Flying Circus

Four actors travel illegally through Balkan borders in war times to a theatre festival. But their real mission is to find their idol Michael Palin.

Bota

Bota (Albanian for “the world”) is a cafe situated on the edge of a vast area of marshland in a remote part of Albania, and it is here that the lives of the protagonists intersect in this compelling debut by Iris Elezi and Thomas Logoreci. The directors skilfully exploit the genius loci of the desolate landscape and, aided by a period score and beguiling long shots, they flawlessly evoke the atmosphere of a place where the past still encroaches upon people’s lives.

My Lake

Young Kristo lives in a village at the edge of gorgeous Lake Prespa, a body of water divided on the borders of three Balkan countries Albania, Macedonia and Greece. In order to support his family, Kristo has become a small-time marijuana smuggler, using his boat and knowledge of the lake waters to transport drug packages from the Albanian to the Macedonian side.

Adelina

After convincing his friends to perform in their drag outfits at a night club owned by a very homophobic businessman, things go awry when their performance is stopped suddenly by a wardrobe malfunction and their true identities are revealed, putting all their lives in instant peril.

Troubleshooters

Two friends from Tirana attempt to solve a murder mystery at a Durrës resort while masquerading as wealthy men, encountering love interests, criminals, and self-doubt along the way as they navigate their first case as private detectives.

Das Meer ist der Himmel

Leon, from Frankfurt, returns to his native Albania after 20 years to scatter his deceased grandfather's ashes in the sea and is forced to confront his past and the family he never wanted to see again.

Chronicles of Sonatine or: Shadows of the Broken Memories

After the disappearance of a young actress, a director is left alone with memories, guilt, and the silence she left behind. In an attempt to understand what happened, he confronts himself, the past, and an unknown figure who seems to have always been there. Chronicles of Sonatine or: Shadows of the Broken Memories is a story built on half-truths and the people who get lost within them. Can you restore a memory… without distorting it?

Discofuneral

A quiet routine unfolds in an absurd world, where a man drifts between dreams of dancing to disco hits with the love of his life and the reality of working as a gravedigger in a cemetery.

Shame and Money

After losing their livelihood in a village, a Kosovar family is forced to move to the capital in pursuit of a place in a hypercapitalist society. "Even Your Mother Doesn't Love You When You’re Broke"- a story about shame and money.

The Odyssey of Joy

Lis, a 10-year-old boy, whose father is a missing person from the Kosovo war, lives cramped in a small apartment with his family during early 2000. Trying to forget a secret only he knows, Lis joins a French trio of clowns who are in Kosovo to entertain the children of the land. Soon enough Lis will learn that reality will catch up with everyone, and he will have to face his suppressed emotions.