Winner of Best Director (Fisnik Maxville) and Nominated for Discovery Award
Q&A with Fisnik Maxville
Ex-Yugoslavia, 2008: the exhumation of a mass grave in a village brings secrets from the past emerge along with the bodies. How can the surviving extended family members live with one another, and with themselves, now that these buried secrets are coming to light?
Remo (Florist Bajgora) returns to Kosovo for a family emergency after living in Switzerland as a refugee for ten years. There, he rekindles his relationship with his cousin Una (Luàna Bajrami, Portrait of a Lady on Fire), who is initially angry at him for leaving the village for a better life abroad. Together they await Una’s terminally ill father’s death, while getting involved in the exhumation of a local mass grave, the legacy of the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s.
A complex examination of family dynamics set against the backdrop of an atrocious ethnic conflict, the film plays over two timelines – one in the present, where Remo is finally able to deal with his unresolved issues, and one in the past, when baby Remo’s destiny is forged following a family tragedy. Guilt and hatred are themes perfectly symbolised by the wolves surrounding the village, leaving Una paralysed until they are defeated.
The Land Within opened at Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival in November 2022, where director Fisnik Maxville won the Best First Feature award.
In the aftermath of any conflict, things can hardly stay buried. Sooner or later its ghosts force the survivors to catch up with their past. A soulful film that excavates as deeply as the mass grave it depicts.
Mickey La Rosa
In collaboration with the Embassy of Switzerland
