Odpuščanje

What really goes on behind closed doors in patriarchal rituals, where men seem to make all the decisions? In 2013, I set out to answer this question. A year later, after thorough research, I set off from Slovenia to film a strongly patriarchal community in the Balkans, focusing on the male characters. I ended up filming over the course of five years and living in Albania for two years. I discovered a modern country in transition, with a traumatic past of an isolationist communist dictatorship that had destroyed tradition, religion, and tribal family ties. To fill the social void and provide meaning, the old, conflicting value systems have been brought back – yet half-remembered, reinterpreted, abused. Similarly, increasingly, elsewhere in Europe and the West, with the far-right neo-traditionalist populism on the rise, a revisiting of tradition, patriarchy, and religion is taking place, reviving old solutions to deal with modern problems. My film is an example of why this does not work.