Kosovar filmmaker Blerta Basholli’s debut “Hive” won the Grand Jury Prize, the Directing Award and the Audience Award in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition at the Sundance Film Festival in 2021. In May, she premiered her second feature film, “Dua,” in Cannes’ Critics’ Week, and this week the film screened at Sarajevo Film Festival. Variety spoke to her about the film.
Set in late 1990s Kosova during the war, “Dua” is a coming-of-age film that follows 13-year-old Dua, who has to deal with the ongoing reality of war and the growing pains of becoming a young woman. As she navigates the daily violence and the possibility of having to leave her beloved country, Dua must learn how to protect herself physically and emotionally from the constant barrage of challenges thrown at her. Basholli explains that the film is semi-autobiographical: “Most of the scenes in the film are based on what I experienced and what happened to me.
Witnessing protests, watching the news, being part of all the discussions at home, leaving the country, it’s all based on my life.” She adds: “When you’re making a film about small countries like Kosova, there’s always a temptation to explain because it’s complicated. There are two nations, two languages, nobody can tell the difference between them, and not many people know what really happened. They just know there was a war.
In this sense, we tried to focus on Dua and to tell that journey through her.” Basholli cites the Dardenne brothers’ “Rosetta” as a source of inspiration, along with Andrea Arnold’s “Fish Tank” and Lucrecia Martel’s “La Niña Santa.” The film is filled with long shots, most of the scenes being shot in one take. For me, it is very important that we believe in the atmosphere. I want people to feel that we are with an Albanian family in 1998 and not to make it feel like a beautiful film,” says Basholli.
Pinea Matoshi, who plays Dua with a vulnerable yet understated intensity, was discovered during a search through every primary school and high school in Prishtina, Kosova, Basholli’s hometown. She and her second assistant director Dafina Gjikolli auditioned around 5,000 children. I prefer actors who express themselves with expressions or attitudes.
I think Pinea has this ability to talk with her eyes,” says Basholli. The film also stars Yllka Gashi as Dua’s mother, who was the lead in “Hive.” Basholli says Gashi “has the same quality as Pinea: she expresses a lot by not saying much. I love working with her and she’s going to be in my next film.” The rest of the cast includes Kushtrim Hoxha as Bekim, Vlera Bilalli as Maki, Andi Bajgora as Veggie, Fiona Abdullahu as Mimi, Kaona Matoshi as Tina (who happens to be Pinea’s sister), Arben Bajraktaraj as Pinea’s Judo trainer and Mila Savic as Mrs.
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