8pm
Hoping to provide for their families, struggling widows start a business to sell a local food product. Together, they find healing and solace in the new venture, but their will to live independently is soon met with hostility.
Fahrije’s (Yllka Gashi) husband has been missing since the war in Kosovo, and along with their grief, her family is struggling financially. In the absence of her husband, whose fate is uncertain, Fahrije has become everything, from homemaker to comforter, to her father-in-law Haxhi (Cun Lajci) and her two children.
To provide for them, Fahije hopes to start a small business selling the roasted red pepper relish ajvar to city supermarkets, but in the traditional patriarchal village where she lives, her ambition and efforts to empower herself and other women are met with resentment and suspicion.
She struggles not only to keep her family afloat but also against a hostile community who are undermining her efforts and hoping for her failure. The cooperative’s tentative steps to defy convention and village gossip form the emotional heart of a remarkable true story.
Dir: Blerta Bassholli, 85 mins, Kosovo-Switzerland-Albania, 2021
Kosovan war widow dealing with sting of grief in richly intelligent film The Guardian
