Best Albanian drama movies

Fahrije’s husband has been missing since the war in Kosovo so she sets up her own small business to provide for her kids, but as she fights against a patriarchal society that does not support her, she faces a crucial decision: to wait for his return, or to continue to persevere.

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

Anna and Tom are ready to declare their relationship to Tom's father officially. But how can they explain to him that Anna and her "family" feed on blood and cannot tolerate daylight? In the chaos of the city of Tirana, their relationship is put to the test, along with the inevitable sacrifice.

In an orphanage in Tirana at the beginning of the Second World War during the occupation by the Italian fascists, a group of boys make plans to rebel against the despotic director and the oppression by the management.

Lea, 21, is being diagnosed with leukemia. Having no time left she starts appreciating every hour, seeing beauty where she's never seen before. Hoping she could change the world, Lea makes a video project aiming to give her contribution to living by creating a viral happiness effect.

Albania, 1958. Luana, the daughter of a well respected man in the village, makes friends with Agim, who moved here after his family were banned from the city by the communists. Years later, their childhood friendship turns into teenage love, but without prospects. Luana’s father promised her in marriage to someone else when she was a child. When her father finds out about Luana and Agim’s love, he is furious and immediately arranges for his daughter to be married to the man he chose for her. Luana faces a dilemma: to flee with her lover to Germany, risking being caught by the communists and probably killed, or stay loyal to her family. A poignant love story set in dark times shaped by pressure from old traditions. A deeply human tale about freedom, which is the greatest good even if the price is loneliness.

The van finally stops, the doors open and Ben comes out alive. A few more fights and he will be able to pay his way out of Albania, and hopefully, take his father with him.

A struggling family in Albania, wrestling with tradition, must unite against a mysterious clan's aggressions, leading to a 'blood feud' that is all too familiar in the Balkans.

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.

Tomka is a boy who likes playing football with his friends. When the German army captures his town, the German soldiers establish their camp in the town stadium. Tomka with help from his friends and their parents organizes sabotage actions against the soldiers.

Handsome Albanian villager Arben wants to marry Etleva, daughter of a neighboring clan, but her father has promised her to another man who is offering a 10,000€ bride price. But when it turns out Etleva is carrying Arben's child, the pressure is on for him to come up with the dowry before the baby is born -- and before her brothers take revenge for the dishonor he has brought their family. Fleeing to Berlin without papers, experience or knowledge of the language, Arben soon learns the ways of survival.

The story takes place in March 1999, Kosovo. It is the period of NATO bombing. Massive displacement of Albanians on ethnic basis. Terror, fear, insecurity and hunger have plagued the town of Gjakova.

After Mato Gruda, a man living in a remote village in the mountains of Albania, steals a cannon abandoned by the German invaders he has to decide whether to use the weapon to support the Partisan resistance or to avenge his family.

Beni is an eight-year-old boy living in Korçë with his parents and leads a sheltered life. His mother is very protective and doesn't let him play outside. When Beni is able to go outside, the neighborhood children make fun of him. One day when his uncle Thomai is visiting, he sees Beni crying after the other children took his horse. Thomai decides to take Beni on horseback to a distant village where he teaches him about life and how to be a man.

Bardhi, an orphan boy, goes to the city to work in the house of a rich man, where he learns how to play the violin.

In Fascist Albania 1942, Albanian partisans will do all they can to remove the Italian fascists from their country.

After a year of online pillow-talk, Ben, a shy Kosovar teen, is exhilarated to finally meet his first (but secret) love, Leo. Consumed with passion, Ben carefully weaves the plans and cover-story for his much desired romantic tryst with Leo who is arriving from Germany in just one month. Everything must be perfect. Great news, Ben’s mother surprises him and the family with a life changing opportunity, but he just can’t take it yet. He must meet Leo.

In today’s Tirana, Agim and Gëzim, two inseparable deaf-mute identical twin brothers, live under the same roof. Ana, Gëzim’s girlfriend, a young high-spirited woman in her thirties, visits them quite often. One evening, Agim is driving back home with Gëzim, when his sight gets blurred and a fatal accident nearly occurs. At the ophthalmologist, a few days later, the two brothers discover that due to a genetic and rare disease, they will separately, but progressively and irreversibly go blind. Slowly immersing into an unbearable silenced darkness, not being able to see the world and each other anymore, only Ana by their side, the two brothers have to make a strong decision around a cup of coffee with new shoes on.

Aida, 45 years old, city hall manager in a small Southern Albanian town by the shore of Ochrid Lake has to fight against the infernal machine of a corrupt system, of which she’s a herself a part of, when her teenage son Mark becomes involved in a rape scandal that could send him to jail.

Leta has not been able to pay the rent for several months. When she and her one-year-old son are thrown out of their apartment, they move in with Sophie, an old woman confined to bed, whose daughter has just employed Leta as a caretaker. In order to keep her job and a roof over their head, Leta has to keep Sophie alive at any cost.

Three best friends, sworn virgins, get into a fight with local boys. When things get rough, they are saved by a girl in the making.

In a remote Greek town, a local businessman who has a debt, tries to join forces with the loanshark’s other deptors. But not everyone sees things the same way. Will he commit two murders?

It is 1961 and an Albanian student (Nik Xhelilaj) of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, together with a group of Czech students, is shooting his graduate movie on a motorcycle factory, in the small market-town of Český Šternberk, in then Czechoslovakia. Coming from a country that is completely isolated from the rest of Europe, he is fascinated by the lifestyle, society and "erotic exuberance" of the Czech golden youth, yet feeling strong links with his family in his homeland. He falls in love with a married woman (Anna Geislerová), the wife of a police superintendent (Paolo Buglioni) and is insecure about his future.

Somewhere in Kosovo, in an isolated village, three young women find their dreams and ambitions stifled, but nothing can stop them in their quest for independence.

Two Albanian brothers migrate to Greece and try, each in his own way, to integrate into their host country by following two different lifestyles.

The movie brings closer the life of Albanian youth and the drug problem. It focuses on a relationship of teen girl from a well educated family and a heroin addict, mirroring of Albanian life after a very troubled decade.

The events take place in a small Albanian village, around the '30ies. This isolated land, dominated by rituals and patriarchal relationships is the spirit that welcomes the newborn child of Abas. Servet, a co-villager, emigrant in the United States of America comes back in his homeland bringing a new vision and a new mentality, which serves as an inspiration for the 10 years old boy, Gjoleka, the son of Abas. Gjoleka founds himself in between of the ideas of his wild father, Abas and his illuminist godfather, Servet. Gjoleka symbolizes the young generation in the difficult realities that offer small and underdeveloped countries, where the outside world constitutes an irresistible attraction. The movie shows with a deep realism the human relationships, such as love, jalousie, hate, the impossibility to be integrated with another world, making this way a cruel autopsy of the weird society to which, "sometime" we belong.

In 1970s Albania, personal freedoms are suppressed by the dictatorship. A couple in love will turn against the status quo, yet their choices will wreak havoc to those around them.

A comedy about life during the 1970's. A father refuses to accept his son marrying a girl from a different religion, thus leading to several comical situations.

Tili is a troublesome kid who always bothers his teacher and parents. However, they try to make him change his ways.

An old gardener tends for the flowers during the war. Nazis ask him for flowers for their dead.

An amateur cycling team from Albania heads to France to take part in a tournament only to discover on the way that revolution has broken out back home.

Andre starts as a teacher in a remote mountain village in Albania. His first task is to choose one of two communist slogans. He picks the shorter one, which is appreciated by his class, because they have to build the slogan on the hillside using whitewashed rocks. However, this means that the longer slogan goes to Diana, the French teacher to whom Andre is attracted. Andre gets on the wrong side of the communist party boss of the village, when he stands up for an unjustly accused goat herdsman, whom he had befriended. The boss is determined to take his revenge on Andre.

An old man refuses to undergo an operation in the hospital because he does not trust the abilities of the female surgeon.

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.

Fresh out of the joint, a 47 year old man returns to his Bronx neighborhood and immediately becomes entangled in obsessive revenge whilst trying to court a local gal.

Dear Enemy tells the true story of the director’s grandfather who became friends with a German officer during the WWII German occupation of Albania while hiding a partisan, an Italian soldier and a Jewish watchmaker in his cellar.

Two people meet up in jail when they come for monthly visits of their spouses. They fall in love after becoming witnesses to a wedding in jail but their relationship has to end because both their spouses get amnesty from the government.

Hava's brothers decide to divide their paternal property. According to traditional customs, the right to inheritance belongs to male descendants only whereas Hava has no right to inherit. The eldest brother is obligated to find a husband for his sister. Hava must be married and live at her husband's house.

Taulant is a 4 year old only child, who is lonesome and wants a sister. However, despite his request, his parents keep ignoring him. Slowly, his parents start listening to him more and decide to consider his request more seriously.

Jeta is a student who is a member of the illegals and tries to create a group of antifascist girls in her school.

In 1936, two female artists (a singer and a pianist) visit the city of Lushnja, which was very conservative.

Germans come amid snow and winter. In the village only people remained are women, that fight until wounded partisans, sheltered in the village, will retreat deeper and snow will cover their tracks. Face to face with the Germans and their control of the village, women, led by mother Shano and mother Mara, depart to make a pile of wood, but actually bring bread and food to the partisans.

Based on true events, a young man raised in a cruel and oppressive family environment, leaves Albania with the dream of becoming a rock star and living a better life. His reckless character and his youth passions lead him to commit a murder in Athens. Chased by everyone, even by his own self, he is imprisoned under the harshest conditions. With the help of a German doctor, he learns to feel sympathy for others and guilt for his crime. His deep remorse will lead him from darkness to light.

On the anniversary of the death of Commissioner Ibrahim Kovaçi, six of his war friends are accompanying his statue to his native village, where a ceremony will be held. During the road, each of them remembers moments related to the life of Ibrahim.

Northern Albania, 1911. Bali marries Bardha, who is betrothed to Sokol Dema, currently imprisoned by the Turks. Bardha tells this to Bali on the first night of their marriage and puts him in a dilemma: he should either kill Bardha due to the laws of the land, or send her to the parents of Sokol Dema.

World War II. Patriot Jonuz Bruga has troubles with his young son, Selim, who leads an immoral lifestyle and does not support the anti-fascist war, while his brothers fight in the city's guerrilla units.

World War II. A group of kids try to sabotage the enemy whichever way they can.

Three years after the fascist occupation, a group of children create the anti-fascist organization called "Debatik". Coli, an orphan boy, manages to become a member.

A historical drama focusing on the days leading up to Albania's declaration of independence from the Ottoman Empire in November 1912.

Year 1943. A group of soldiers, carrying an injured comrade, are trying to reach the hospital.

World War II. The fascists kill a boy and invite his mother to identify the body, but she refuses.

A young pharmacist enters into a casual relationship with a young woman alleged to be his father's secret mistress, in contemporary Tirana.

An illegal immigrant from Albania infiltrates the lives of a group of Londoners with devastating consequences.

Besnik is a lonely shepherd and devoted Muslim, haunted by unfulfilled love. He is the son of a Catholic mother and formerly Communist father whom he takes care of in an Albanian village in the mountains. Up here, Christians and Muslims have found a way to co-exist peacefully. Even after the discovery that the old mosque used to be a church and that the building was actually shared by the two religions in the past, the calm of daily life can be preserved - with Besnik's help. After the death of his father, however, drastic changes threaten Besnik's multi-faith family and the shepherd is forced to seek his own path.

A tragicomedy in which an old man has two sons but neither of them, influenced by their wives, want to keep him. In the end, they decide to marry him off to an old woman, to free their houses of him.

A group of kids want to go to their teacher's house during the Teachers Day.

Tom Melgushi, becoming overexcited from alcohol, wanders around the streets disturbing people. And one day, Flutura, a teacher of the village, gets on his cab, and there was a glimpse of hope for a stable relationship with the young woman. Tom becomes subject of public criticism after Flutura's accident, because she jumped out of the cab fearing Tom's violence.

After his father is killed, a young boy decides to join the partisans and fight in the war.

After World War II, more than 85% of the Albanian people were illiterate. Partisan soldier Dritan Shkaba is tasked with opening new schools in north Albania to enlighten the population.

Spectacular film by successful director Dhimitër Anagnosti. Three people, Sergeant Rahmiu (Ndrek Luca), Islam (Reshat Arbana), and Bepini (Bujar Kapexhiu) hijack a military ship to emigrate to Italy. Along the way they encounter opposition in the sailor Skender Guri (Rikard Ljarja), who wants to turn the ship back to Albania. 4 people representing different layers of the postwar Albanian society merge and collide offshore, unfolding the political conflicts of that era.

Hëna, who works in a construction site, falls in love with another worker, Agim.

The Balkans 1443 . After a long successful military experience in the Turkish army, the reputation of the young Kastriota reached Albania and people began to hope in his return to his homeland, from which he was taken away as a child. When the Sultan gives the hero the task of facing János Hunyadi, Kastriota will start a journey towards finding his true self and choosing his path.

Margarita Begolli, the portagonist of the film, returns to Albania after 25 years with her memory lost.

Bardhyl and Magdalena are newlyweds. At first they go along fine, until Bardhyl starts getting influenced by his neighbors' words.

Besim does not like his stepfather Ahmet. He abandons school and commits some mistakes, but with help from his friends, he returns to living a normal and healthy life.