Gentian Koci about Pain
• – • COD
About the speaker
Gentian Koçi is a director, screenwriter, and film producer from Tirana, Albania.
His short films and documentaries have been selected and awarded at many international film festivals. He was internationally recognized for his documentary NOT A CARWASH, which premiered in official selection at the Hot Docs International Documentary Film Festival in 2012 and met with great critical acclaim in Sight & Sound.
In 2017, Gentian Koçi presented his first feature film, Daybreak, which had its world premiere at the Sarajevo International Film Festival in the main competition and was awarded Heart of Sarajevo's Best Actress. Since its world premiere, Daybreak has been selected for more than 50 important film festivals all over the world, gathering many awards and receiving very positive reviews. DAYBREAK was the official Albanian submission for the Academy Awards (Oscars 2018).
Gentian Koçi's second feature film, A CUP OF COFFEE AND NEW SHOES ON (2022), had its world premiere in the main competition at Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF), its Nordic premiere at Göteborg Film Festival, the German premiere at CineVision Competition at 40th Filmfest München, its Greek premiere at the 64th Thessaloniki Film Festival, etc. It garnered awards such as Best Director at the 41st Bergamo Film Meeting, Golden Sun for Best Film and the Critics’ Award in the SEE Program at CineDays Film Festival, Best actors at the 15th PriFest, Audience Award for Best Film of Open Horizons section, 64thThessaloniki International Film Festival, etc. A CUP OF COFFEE AND NEW SHOES ON was the Albanian official submission for the Academy Awards (Oscars 2023). It received great critical acclaim from Variety, ScreenDaily, Cineuropa, etc.
Recently, Gentian Koçi was selected and participated in Producer on the Move, EFP, Cannes 2023. Actually, he is in the development phase of his next project, Cold Sun.
Local partners
The Center for Openness and Dialogue comes as a result of the personal initiative of Prime Minister Edi Rama. The objective was simple: to transform a part of the headquarters of the Council of Ministers into a space in the service of citizens, to convey the message of openness, transparency and transformation. Translating this goal into a concrete project has been, without doubt, a work far more challenging.
Additional details
In my last two films “Daybreak” and “A Cup of Coffee and New Shoes On”, two existential dramas, the pain is palpable on numb portraits, in deep faceless breaths, “headless” bodies, in the tiny facial expressions visually portrayed as sysmic waves caused by a lava made of anguish, which never actually explodes, in broken bodies, crashed over the floor, through hands speaking the secret language of absolute darkness. For me, the pain, the real one, feels akin to a nail perpetuously scratching ones stomach. In this meeting, l would like to share with you my own cinematic language of pain.
Location
