SATURDAY, October 18

blue CINEMA ABATON

While working on The Albanian Files, an upcoming book on Albanian architecture, interviews were conducted with over 50 international architects currently working in the country. These Zoom-recorded conversations became the foundation for The Albanian Calls, a feature-length video essay. The film captures the discourse surrounding what it means to be an international architect in contemporary Albania, exploring both opportunities and challenges.

It examines the agency of architects, the shifting relationship between public and private space, and the intersection of architecture and politics. The Albanian Calls investigates how architecture shapes Albania’s emerging identity, while at the same time how the country’s unique architectural environment prompts a reflection on the state of the practice as a whole, as well as on the role of an individual architect working in a foreign country. In alignment with the pavilion’s central theme—Building Architecture Culture—the film is edited as a continuous Zoom conversation, weaving together insights from more than 30 architects.

This dialogue is interspersed with two archival films from the Albanian National Film Archive (AQSHF): Shqipëria Turistikeby Mark Topallaj (1974). This movie was made as a propaganda film to purely attract tourist from a similar Marxist-Leninst ideology in a time when the country was completely isolated from the rest of the world. And the second archival footage from Shqipëria 1991by Xhovlin Hajati and Reiz Çiço (1991), showing the country at the time.

These historical visuals bridge Albania’s complex past with its evolving future, while at the same time positioning The Albanian Calls as a chronicle of it time.