Feature film
The Captain
Kapedani
Synopsis
Xha Sulo, an old fighter with white moustaches, dreams that he is facing the Nazis and the Ottoman Turks on the same battlefield. In his village, however, it is a woman who runs the cooperative, and he can hardly bear taking orders from her; he complains of it to his friend Beqo, and comic situations follow one another. He then leaves for Tirana to claim his right, and to find out why women have been given the same rights as men, from Ropi, a friend who holds an important post there.
Context
The screenplay is by Skënder Plasari, a childhood friend of Fejzo, and the studio, which at the time entrusted a first film to two directors, gave it to Fejzo and Hoshafi. Mihal Popi, approached, withdrew because of the travelling the shoot required; Nikolin Xhoja, in his sixties, took the role of Beqo, and Albert Vërria, who was in his thirties, was aged by the make-up artist Llukan Bushi to play Sulo. A veteran protested that the veterans were being mocked, but Enver Hoxha laughed at the screening, which saved the film; scenes of dreams and lines judged excessive were nonetheless cut. It was released in Tirana on 28 February 1972.
Who it is for
An hour and a half of village comedy, spoken in Albanian, subtitled in English since its restoration; it is enough to know what an agricultural cooperative was.
Prizes and reception
The first comedy of Albanian cinema; restored in 4K and presented at the Tirana International Film Festival in 2024.
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