The Dryden will screen Tomka Dhe Shokët e Tij (Tomka and His Friends, Xhanfise Keko, Albania 1977, 80 min., 35mm; Albanian w/subtitles) as part of the Albanian Cinema Project series with a special introduction by Regina Longo, director of the Albanian Cinema Project.

The shorts and features of Xhanfise Keko, all of which center on children's themes and preoccupations, occupy a pivotal yet controversial place in Albanian cinema. These films were among the most popular of Albania's Communist era, and remain widely loved. But this affection is now tempered with ambivalence about their association with an era many Albanians would prefer to forget. Keko was the only female Albanian feature film director in the Kinostudio era, which ended in 1996. When she died in 2007, she left behind a remarkable legacy of nearly a dozen features virtually unknown to outside audiences. The Albania Cinema Project's English-subtitled restoration of Tomka and His Friends is a rare chance to look at moving images from a society that was closed off from the rest of the world for decades. It tells a compelling story of a group of young boys working to defend their homeland from the occupying German army in the town of Berat around 1943.

[source: George Eastman Museum calendar, 2018-May-21]