Was macht die Konkurrenz

A lonely wanderer struggles to carry his burden – a massive tree trunk, ball and chain, something being born. When his only company – a small bird – suffers abuse from a creature who came out of the burden he carries, our protagonist needs to decide whose company he prefers on his future path. (The reference to the “province” is present in describing a sense of existence, which is pictured through both the internal and the external emigration.)

The Albanian transition has compelled Loro Shestani to give up: his wife is dead, his daughter, a refugee in Italy, has forgotten her roots and the sea does not offer fish any more. Loro has passed middle-age and understands that his life is in vain, he cannot cope with this new world. The pigeons are the only companions of his solitude. “The last day of Loro Shestani”, is inspired by real events that occurred in the hot summer of 1994. One afternoon, watching a World Cup football match from USA, I heard a powerful explosion from the building in front of my own. I can still remember the very few and fast frames of the short flight of the man who dynamited himself before falling over the his forth floor balcony. Transformed into a black mess he contrasted with the red background painted by his own blood.

The island Tiengemeten was once reclaimed from the sea and reshaped to provide fertile agricultural land. In the 1990s a decision was made to let the vagaries of nature loose on the island. Making plans, finding replacement farms for the farmers and finding financing took ten years. In 2006 the “reshaping” of the island was started. The asphalt roads were dug up to make way for creeks, trees were felled and new trees were planted, old dikes were removed and new ones created. Digna Sinke follows the changes in the landscape over a period of 13 years, also recollecting the changes in her own life. The signifying themes of the film are temporality and transitoriness.