Worth: $15.00
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Cast:
Adriana Matoshi, Astrit Kabashi
Intro:
...this isn’t an easy watch; be prepared for a sombre mood and slow pace but it is beautifully shot, and the themes are intelligently explored.
The film begins with a woman lying in a meadow, cradling her stomach, an image of fertility and pregnancy. We see her tending cattle, the farming life, close to the land; then other images break in, blood in the river, a severed cow, horror and bloodshed. The central premise of Zana is, how can a woman bring new life into the world when she is haunted and traumatised by horror, specifically the tragedies that occurred in Kosovo, right there in the fields and villages.
Writer and director Antoneta Kastrati is based in LA but her roots are in Kosovo. For the past ten years she has made documentaries. Zana is her feature-length debut and she carries a measured, pointed style from her past filmmaking experience. She also has a superb eye for detail and local specific dialogue.
Her strengths as a documentarian broaden the unrelenting story of a victim to a slice of life view of a culture caught between past and present, still deeply influenced by patriarchy and misogyny, twenty years after the conflict.
The title Zana is taken from folklore, referring to spirits that were said to haunt rural Albania and Kosovo.
With its themes of superstition and black magic, the main character is way beyond the help of modern medicine. When psychiatric treatment is suggested, the protagonist’s fierce mother in law states ‘we don’t have crazies in our family’, and later takes her to a series of faith healers.
Cinematography is by the director’s sister Sevdije Kastrati, who gives the film scope and gravitas as well as cleverly borrowing from the horror genre to draw us into the grieving, childless character’s traumatised state. Long slow takes that place her centre frame while events happen on the periphery, add to the general atmosphere of unease and dislocation.
Kastrati dedicated the film to her mother Ajshe and sister Luljeta who were both killed in the conflict 20 years ago.
Screening in Sydney Film Festival’s Europe! Voices of Women in Film strand, this isn’t an easy watch; be prepared for a sombre mood and slow pace but it is beautifully shot, and the themes are intelligently explored.
