Alketa Sylaj

Haunted by her long-suppressed past and pressured by family to seek treatment from mystical healers for her infertility, a Kosovar woman struggles to reconcile the expectations of motherhood with a legacy of wartime brutality.

10-year-old Nori is obliged to grow up at a very young age after the early death of his mother and then being abandoned by his father Gezim in the Kosovo of the 1990s.After a dangerous and eventful journey, Nori finally arrives in Germany and is reunited with his father, but he cannot understand how Gezim could just have left him. And chances of them being able to stay in Germany look bleak when Gezim’s application for asylum is rejected.

The story takes place in March 1999, Kosovo. It is the period of NATO bombing. Massive displacement of Albanians on ethnic basis. Terror, fear, insecurity and hunger have plagued the town of Gjakova.

In the early '90s, the Yugoslavian Government cancelled the autonomy of Kosovo, dissolved its Parliament and closed down the National Television. All institutional life was reorganized by the new authorities, while the majority of the citizens responded with peaceful demonstrations. During this terrible time, Fadili, who works as an archivist, has to choose between two options, knowing that both of them are wrong. He therefore involuntarily and unwillingly "swallows" the shame, endures the pressure bearing down from all sides and puts up with the bad reputation for only one reason: to provide for his family.

Vera is a middle-aged sign language interpreter, whose life is disrupted by her husband's suicide who has to face the raw reality of going against the deep-seated gender issues of our times.