Xhanfize Keko’s Feminism through a Cinema of Childhood Under Communism

The first and only woman director of feature film under communist Albania, Xhanfise Keko has created a substantial body of work which demonstrates a true visionary’s passion for filmmaking. Working within a socialist realism framework, Keko’s childrens films films evoke an aesthetically distinctive creativity which carries significant, original social commentary. Through her representations of childhood experiences during the communist years she also offers images of women’s experiences as mothers, wives, and workers, exploring and problematizing the position of women in communist Albanian society. Keko is a well-known director of children’s films in Albania and the international film community has greatly appreciated and celebrated her work to this day.

Research Student and PhD Candidate Fjoralba Miraka (Roehampton University, London) is organising a Retrospective which will be hosted by Close Up Film Centre and supported by the Anglo-Albanian Association in London. It will focus on the director’s contribution to a film genre which in Albanian film discourse is to this day absent: the woman’s film.  In line with previous and concurrent retrospectives of her work which pay tribute, remember, and celebrate this artist’s tremendous body of work as well as her influence within Albanian film history and culture,  this project comes as a complementary one, exploring the director’s unique contribution to the woman’s film. The importance, thus, of this project is significant as it will shed new light to one of Albania’s legendary film figures, a woman working in a male profession, opening the path for future generations of women filmmakers.

The project is in need of external funding. For details about how you can support the project, financially or otherwise, please contact us at fjoralba09@gmail.com