05/08/2024
The way to Kino Lumi is slow, but the steps should be decided, as you will be encountering everything and everyone all at once. Between bars swarming with people, a handful of individuals walk up and down the narrow streets, appearing to wander aimlessly. The sound of motorcycles, people chatting, and children playing fills the air. The city of Prizren, in its entirety, is to be experienced during the viewings at Kino Lumi. Another part of the inner life as we know it slowly takes on a different light while being unveiled on the cinema screen.
Ever since I have been flying by Aylin Gökmen shows as much as it makes one feel what it is like to be a tree in spring, to bathe in natural waters while the grandmother's hands are dipping into them. A soft, poetic voice fills the in-between space that exists between the cinema and life on both sides of the river. A call made through two fingers, cotton fields, and an inherent feeling of longing can only be portrayed through slightly faded colors. There are heavy-hearted letters to mom and another to a lover and another to oneself, expressing feelings of slowness, grief, treading water, physical displacement, and the sensation of your heart not being in the right place. A pair of heavy eyes, a straight face, and a deep voice tell a story of violence. What happens before you start flying? You go little by little. And after you fly? You put on some music that reminds you of home and let your eyes fill with tears, but just a little bit.
In Another Day by Eneos Çarka, time stands still for Besmir and Rafael when they are performing together in the streets. Anything that happens before their performances, and anything that happens after the shows, does not exist for this peculiar duo. When they start pulling their acrobatic tricks in the dirty corners of Italian streets, they forget that one has a physical condition and the other is haunted by the ghosts of his family’s past. They forget that they counted yesterday’s coins one by one, hoping to continue existing for another day. They forget their small, cramped apartment and the police who cut short their street performance times. They exist in the same time and space as the people who eagerly put money in their silly hat and who want to take one more picture in hopes of not forgetting the shared experience of joy and gravity-defying bodily movements. Sometimes, outside of their street performances, they talk about Gogol and Brecht, and sometimes they share a beer. It is after the shows that they are reminded of how heavy life is, and it is at that moment the first cracks in their friendship begin to show. Although the story ends at some point, and although Besmir and Rafael eventually part ways, they remain frozen in time by each other’s side in their striped T-shirts and their typical red pants with a single white stripe.
When faced with moments of deep intimacy during filmmaking, Eneos Çarka says that sometimes the process is simply intuitive. If there is doubt about whether there are rules for deconstructing the already-known, sometimes the best approach is to take it one step at a time and be respectful. “I had to be responsible and take care of their dignity on the screen because that is something we, as documentary filmmakers, must think about and care about… There is a lot of trust that they gave me, and I had to pay that back,” Eneos says.
The Thursday’s DokuTalk will be held precisely around the matters of intimacy in observational cinema, where different documentary filmmakers will further elaborate on the ethical dilemmas related to their stories and characters.
By: Enxhi Noni
Photo: Suer Celina
