Opposite me sits a strikingly energetic man with an insatiable appetite for getting a story to the
\nscreen. Fatmir Ko\u00e7i is a director from Albania with a long list of films under his belt. He believes that
\nhonesty is the most important thing in life and that without it being an impactful storyteller is
\nimpossible.
\nThe origin of this truth seeking can be traced back to the absolute facade that came with Albania
\nbeing under soviet rule. When Fatmir attended film school in the 1970s he was met with what he felt
\nwas a constrictive demand of showing reality as picture perfect in every story. Before film school
\nFatmir studied theater and was there told that he would never make it as an actor or a director for
\nthe stage. He says himself that he \u201chated theater\u201d at the time, and still isn\u2019t all that fond of it. He is
\nmuch more interested in the endless possibilities for narrative that film provides. In The Rise and Fall
\nof Comrade Zylo there is a scene where a state appointed theater writer presents a new piece
\nmeant to wave the flag of Albanian cultural ideals. The audience consists solely of bureaucrats to
\nassess whether the play is fit for the public. They are, of course, able to debate virtually everything in
\nthe play and don\u2019t even agree on what their esteemed ideals are.<\/p>\n
For Comrade Zylo, Fatmir was inspired by the style of Italian directors, such as Fellini, Elio Petri and
\nPietro Germi. Ironically, the story of Zylo is set in the middle of an era when anything besides TV
\nTiriana, Albania\u2019s state run station, was illegal to watch. Especially foreign films from non-soviet
\ncountries. Fatmir remembers an incident from sometime in the 80s when he was alone in the attic of
\nhis mother\u2019s house at midnight. With her asleep in the next room, Fatmir had put his long distance
\nTV antenna in place and was watching an Italian film. Then there came an aggressive knock on the
\nattic window. Fatmir quickly turned the TV off and hid, staying completely still. The knock was
\nrepeated several times until the person disappeared again into the night. He never saw the knocker,
\nbut feels this was a very close call.<\/p>\n
The Rise and Fall of Comrade Zylo is a nationally acclaimed novel in Albania that is a mandatory
\nread in high schools across the country. Fatmir followed the main themes of the story, but increased
\nthe value of the affair that Demka, comrade Zylo\u2019s intelligent and trusty speech writer, has with Adila,
\nZylo\u2019s wife. The affair is only barely hinted at in the book, but Fatmir feels that it adds greatly to the
\ndrama.
\nFatmir has adapted screenplays from written works before but says screenwriting is always a
\nchallenge. Adaptations and original screenplays both pose their own challenges. \u201cYou are never safe
\nbecause you have done something before, you can\u2019t approach the game the same way twice\u201d.
\nWhen he hit a wall Fatmir got in touch with his longtime friend, Mike Downey, who also serves as
\nproducer on the project. \u201cI knew from the beginning that I would need a bright mind with me, some
\nwho is not Albanian.\u201d Mike has a sense of realism, and is a very arty character at the same time.
\nFatmir believed he could deliver the story in the right way. This turned out to be true and the
\ncollaboration successful.<\/p>\n
Studying and understanding the cinematic language and history makes a good filmmaker. Without it
\nyou\u2019re only getting something on film, not really making a movie. \u201cIt is like if you make a book with a
\nname on the cover, but no text on the pages. The cinematic language is a very real thing that you
\nhave to learn like any other language. There has to be an actual story in your book, your film.\u201d
\nChoosing how to structure your narrative is something everyone must understand for themselves
\nthrough watching and analyzing great works.<\/p>\n
When it is mentioned that The Rise and Fall of Comrade Zylo is reminiscent of a polaroid picture
\nfrom the soviet era, Fatmir feels it is an accurate description. In finding the style for the soviet
\nbureaucratic world, he chose to go for heightened reality, stylizing the film\u2019s color palette and details
\nof a bygone era. To him, modern design has been stripped of all character and is flat. \u201cI wanted the
\nflaws in the surroundings of the time to be present, nothing was perfect and plastick-y back then.\u201d<\/p>\n
On working with actors and crew, the most important thing to Fatmir is showing others respect and
\nkeeping your cool. \u201cYou have to trust the people around you to deliver their work. You as a director
\nmust deliver your vision in a calm, yet determined way so that you inspire creativity in everyone.\u201d
\nThe actors in The Rise and Fall of Comrade Zylo are all trained professionals, but Fatmir decided to
\nchoose up and coming actors rather than older members of the Albanian acting elite. For example
\nthe actor who plays Zylo himself, Aleks Seitaj, had starred in some supporting roles and short films
\nbefore taking on this lead in Comrade Zylo. For the acting style Fatmir let the talents shine through,
\nrather than being too particular in his direction, and this is a technique he always uses. The style is
\nreminiscent of other eastern european works in a way that the acting has a feeling of heightened
\nreality, verging on dry humor at times. This may be in relation to the effects that these countries had
\nto endure for decades, and still linger. A sort of surreal image of authority, where the bureaucratic
\nillusion is shown in a satirical way.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I understood very early on that I\u2019m not going to make these films that are full of lies and
\npropaganda. Albania was a dictatorship, a very harsh one, when I was starting out in the film
\nindustry. [\u2026] It was all about how beautiful life is, the family, the socialism, the society which was all a
\ncomplete lie.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fatmir made his first full feature, Nekrologji, in 1993. Three years later he contacted the writer of The
\nRise and Fall of Comrade Zylo to talk about getting the rights to adapt the story for the screen: \u201cBut
\nhe said that now is not the time. Now is too early, you should wait a bit longer.\u201d The soviet union
\ncollapsed in 1992 and with it Albania\u2019s dictatorship. Both Nekrologji and The Rise and Fall of
\nComrade Zylo deal with the illusions that dictatorship communities create to keep their people
\nsubdued and happy. Nekrologji tells the story of a propaganda agent of a dictator whose death has
\nbeen kept secret from the nation for a long time. It is in a way similar to his newest film where the
\nincompetent Comrade Zylo is being publicly made out to be a great leadership genius with the help
\nof his clever speech writer Demka.
\nToday, Fatmir has adapted a book from 1936 into a screenplay called \u2018If I were a boy\u201d. His story
\ncenters around an Albanian girl in the late 90s who tries to break away from her patriarchal family.
\nFor future projects, Fatmir is eyeing Homer\u2019s odyssey, or even Victor Hugo\u2019s \u2018Ninety-Three\u2019.<\/p>\n
Fatmir\u2019s biggest inspiration is animals and enjoying nature. \u201cWhen you love animals and nature, you
\nbecome more human.\u201d He feels that both provide a dependable spring for creativity and while
\nconnections with people may rupture at any time, nature is eternal. He does of course enjoy meeting
\nwith interesting people though. Fatmir has four dogs and seven cats, many of which he has rescued
\nfrom the street. He presents a picture of one of them, a fierce three legged ginger female named
\nPatchu, which in Albanian means \u201cpatch\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Opposite me sits a strikingly energetic man with an insatiable appetite for getting a story to the screen. Fatmir Ko\u00e7i is a director from Albania with a long list of films under his belt. He believes that honesty is the most important thing in life and that without it being an impactful storyteller is impossible. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":17331,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[125],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n