Anija

Synopsis

In early March 1991 some ships appeared for the first time on the horizon off the Italian Adriatic coast. Since then that stretch of Southern Italy has seen a stunning number of ships full of people headed to shore, in what was later acknowledged as an exodus of Albanians. It was a collective escape of staggering proportion, the likes of which hadn’t been seen in Europe since World War 2; it affected various kinds of different people, all united by the desire to leave Albania behind.

Director Biography

Roland Sejko (Albania, 1968) graduated from the University of Tirana’s history and philology department in 1990 with a degree in foreign languages and literature. He fled Albania in 1991 on one of the many ships of the great exodus and settled in Rome. He has worked for the Istituto Luce since 1996, first in the film department, then in the historical archives. Aside from his work in the film industry, he is also a journalist; he was the editor in chief of “Bota Shqiptare,” the only periodical for Albanians published in Italy. He made his debut as a screenwriter and director in 2008 with his documentary Albania il paese di fronte, produced and distributed by the Istituto Luce.