ITALY

ALBÀNIA BLUES

2000 – color – 90’

Direction: Nico Cirasola

Screenplay: Nico Cirasola, Agostino Ferrente

Cinematography: Sabrina Varani

Editing: Bruno Micheli

Set design: Dionisia & I Riciclotteri

Music: Nino Lepore, Ziringaglia, Zinganamama, Amir

Costumes: Eleonora Devitofrancesco, Betta Zenzola

Cast: Chantal Ughi (Aida), Valentina Chico (Lea), Nico Cirasola (Fefè), Antonio Ricossa (Nanni), Giovanni Pellegrino (Gangster), Dionisia Cirasola (Ornella), Agostino Ferrente (Albanese the Albanian), I Riciclotteri (I Riciclotteri)

Producers: Nico Cirasola, Alfonso Casale

Production: Mediterranea Film

Distribution: Stella Films

synopsis

The story is about an antenna technician, Fefè, who works traveling around Puglia. While working, he comes across some TV broadcasts regarding Albanians who have neither a future nor a home, but who are attracted to watching television. His co-worker Nanni is constantly in front of the TV, attentively following a quiz show where one must guess the exact number of refugees crammed on a ship.

Fefè, after having experienced a romantic disappointment, leaves home and witnesses a group of Albanian refugees landing on the shore. There he meets a beautiful refugee who asks him for shelter along with her cousin, yet then they are joined by other relatives and countrymen and the house is soon overrun with criminals and artists. Fefé’s experiences a breakthrough as he desperately seeks refuge in Albania.

critical note

“(…) a plunge into crazy southern Italy with a reminiscent touch of Carmelo Bene and Pasolini” (Silvia Gigli, Il Corriere, September 2000)

“Nico Cirasola, the Apulian Kusturica, for his visionary style veined with surreal irony that has made him famous more abroad than in Italy.” (Geraldine Schwarz, La Repubblica, 8/8/2000)

“This is how the “autarkic” cinema of the Apulian director-turned-filmmaker Nico Cirasola is made: no second thoughts about scenes and settings, characters and performers, narration and dialogue. Take it or leave it. Nico is all about that.” (Mario Calderale, Segnocinema, September/October 2000)

festival

2000 Festival Terra di Siena

2000 Internationales Film Festival Mannheim-Heidelberg