#Pavlina Oça

[dweemeister]

Tomka and His Friends (1977, Albania) – directed by Xhanfize Keko

Albanian director Xhanfize Keko (1928–2007) was a founding member of the New Albania Film Studio in 1952 and was the only woman directing films in Communist Albania. Many of Keko’s films centered on the lives of children, including the one above, Tomka and His Friends. Though some dismissed Keko for this very reason, she tailored her screenplays mid-production to accommodate the many non-professional child actors she directed.

In this film, the German Wehrmacht arrives in a small Albanian town sometime after Italy’s surrender to the Allies. Tomka (Enea Zhegu; the only professional actor of all the children in this film) and the other boys of the village are furious when the German soldiers set up camp on their favorite soccer field. Thus, they decide to fight back by helping the Albanian partisans.

The print provided above contains English subtitles. The restoration was made possible by the United States Library of Congress, in coordination with the Albanian Cinema Project and the Albanian National Film Archive.