The best Alban Ukaj’s movies
We present our ranking of the best Alban Ukaj’s movies. Do you love cinema? Or are you looking for a movie of your favorite actor to watch tonight? Surely you have some to see or that you did not know yet about Alban Ukaj.
Quo Vadis, Aida?
8/10
Bosnia, July 1995. Aida is a translator for the UN in the small town of Srebrenica. When the Serbian army takes over the town, her family is among the thousands of citizens looking for shelter in the UN camp. As an insider to the negotiations Aida has access to crucial information that she needs to interpret. What is at the horizon for her family and people - rescue or death? Which move should she take?
Lorna's Silence
7.1/10
In order to become the owner of a snack bar with her boyfriend, Lorna, a young Albanian woman living in Belgium, becomes an accomplice to a diabolical plan devised by mobster Fabio.
Sympathy for the Devil
7.5/10
In an urban war zone where everything that moves is a target, Paul tries to live, love and inform.
On the Path
6.9/10
Loving young couple Luna and Amar try their best to overcome unexpected obstacles that threaten their relationship. After Amar's dramatic change in a fundamentalist community, Luna tears herself apart searching if love is truly enough to keep the couple together on the path to a lifetime of happiness...
The White Fortress
6/10
What could be a beautiful fairy tale for some - boy meets girl - could also be the beginning of a horror film for Faruk. The young man is crushed between the dark world of his criminal cousins in Sarajevo and the discovery of love. The film powerfully visualises and contrasts a harshness and tenderness experienced and dreamed.
Sabina K.
6.4/10
Sabina, a divorced mother of two small children, falls in love with an old friend from the Bosnian war. The two plan to marry, but things go terribly wrong.
The Marriage
6.8/10
Bekim and Anita are getting married, but Anita is unaware that Bekim is still in love with his best friend Nol. The Marriage charts the emotional predicament of the man who has strong feelings for two persons. There is great pressure to marry and only mild support for LGBTQ rights in Kosovan society, so Zeqiri’s film, which unashamedly puts same-sex and heterosexual passion on the same plane, is a forceful step in the right direction, as well as a dynamic portrait of romance and deception in the shadow of war.
Bota
6.7/10
Bota (Albanian for “the world”) is a cafe situated on the edge of a vast area of marshland in a remote part of Albania, and it is here that the lives of the protagonists intersect in this compelling debut by Iris Elezi and Thomas Logoreci. The directors skilfully exploit the genius loci of the desolate landscape and, aided by a period score and beguiling long shots, they flawlessly evoke the atmosphere of a place where the past still encroaches upon people’s lives.
Paycheck
5.9/10
A man earns his first paycheck by driving his motorcycle, for the pleasure of rich people, through a mine field in Bosnia.
J.A.C.E.
6.6/10
Twice-orphaned Jace, a seven-year-old Albanian of Greek origin, witnesses a massacre that wipes out his entire foster family in Argyrokastron, and then falls in the hands of a bunch of ruthless gangsters who "export" children abroad for various profitable reasons (ranging from beggary to organ trade). Jace ends up in Athens, Greece, begging at street corners, exploring the secret horrors of brutal institutions for young offenders or, much later, serving obscure patrons, in an underworld where violent loss seems to be his only destiny. The movie follows Jace's inverted Odyssey in a dark universe of abuse, murder and fear, as he desperately (and silently) seeks for a "family" of his own or, at least, for a sense of belonging
Full Moon
6.9/10
A police officer Hamza has to work that night even though his wife has gone into labour, because the police are short-staffed. To make everything worse, it seems that people showing up at the station have decided to prove the old belief about the mysterious powers of the full moon and its influence on human behaviour. In the course of that one night, representatives of all the absurdity and tragedy of life in Bosnia and Herzegovina parade through the station and somehow help Hamza get ready for a new life.
