For June’s BookNight we are pleased to welcome author and special advisor at Human Rights Watch Fred Abrahams, who will present his book Modern Albania From Dictatorship to Democracy in Europe over an intimate dinner with Frontline Club members. You can now order Modern Albania with a 20% discount. Please use this code to claim your discount: CSF615MALB.

Modern Albania offers a vivid history of the fall of the Albanian Communist regime and the trials and tribulations that led the country to become the state it is today. The book provides an in-depth look at the Communists’ final Politburo meetings and the first student revolts; the fall of the Stalinist regime and the war in neighbouring Kosovo; and the relationship between Albania and the United States. A rich, narrative-driven account, Modern Albania gives readers a front-row seat to the dramatic events of the last battle of Cold War Europe.

Fred Abrahams is a writer who has worked for twenty years in areas marred by political crises and armed conflict, including the Balkans and the Middle East. In Modern Albania, he weaves together interviews with key Albanians and international parties who have played a role in the country’s politics since 1990.

Guests will be expected to have read the book, and to be ready and willing to contribute to the conversation. This will be an in-depth discussion rather than a standard format Q&A. The evening will start with drinks at 7:00 PM, following by a sit-down dinner at 7:30 PM. We will get to know one another over starters before the introduction of the evening’s guest author.

The event will be hosted by Frontline Club director, Pranvera Smith, and founding member and senior correspondent at The Guardian and The Observer, Ed Vulliamy.

Menu £25 per person excluding drinks

On Monday 27 January a large audience gathered at the Frontline Club for a screening of Mark Cousins’ contemplative essay-film Here Be Dragons, followed by a Q&A with the director, via Skype, and with producer Don Boyd, founder of HiBROW.

Producer Don Boyd

Here be Dragons assumes the form of an intimate travelogue, tracking the director’s week-long stay in Albania as a jury member of Tirana’s 13th international film festival. Cousins explores Albania’s current cinematic culture, notably the plight of the national film archives, which sit in a state of disrepair, whilst reflecting on wider questions of trauma, history and memory in the context of post-communist Albania. Here Be Dragons interweaves shots of Tirana, namely the Pyramid of Enver Hoxha and other architectural remnants of the former totalitarian regime, with old film clips – emphasising Cousins’ sentiment that “to look is to travel”.

An audience member opened the post-screening discussion by noting the sense of “sadness” and “greyness” that, in his opinion, pervaded the film, and asked Cousins whether this was representative of present-day Albania.

Cousins responded that his aim was to document the “emotional landscape” of the nation and to capture the “balance between happy and sadness which you find in many places”.

“If you spend time in Albania, you do find that it is a kind of post-traumatic world. . . . It has had so many dreams thrust upon it, and so many of those dreams ended up to be empty dreams. And so people aren’t sure what to believe.”

He concluded that while the overall melody of Here Be Dragons was one of sadness, “there is a hopeful tune there, especially amongst the young people”. Cousins later pointed out that compared to all the Albanian films produced in the last five years, which he had watched in his capacity as a jury member of the Tirana International Film Festival, Here Be Dragons remained less bleak.

Boyd then paid tribute to the “phenomenal knowledge of the cinema” in which Cousins’ rooted his work, adding that the director balanced his filmic enthusiasm with “his considerable intellect . . . which is so rare in modern cinema”.

Director Mark Cousins joins the Q&A via Skype

Another member of the audience, who had travelled to Albania on numerous occasions, asked whether dealing with a little-known subject matter involved a greater responsibility on the part of the filmmaker, as film plays a crucial role in the shaping of a nation’s identity. Cousins echoed this sentiment with his statement that “film legacy is a kind of autobiography of a nation”. The audience member also enquired as to the reaction that the film provoked in Albania, in particular from viewers outside of the creative community.

Cousins responded that Here Be Dragons had inspired an extremely positive reaction from Albanian viewers, with one critic naming it “the best film ever made by a foreigner about Albania”. Boyd confirmed the film’s positive reception, and stated that he found the Albanian people to be “sensationally not bleak . . . and really positive about what they call their ‘experiment’ to do with the future, and they felt that Mark’s film was a metaphor for what had gone before”.

A member of the audience asked Cousins to comment on the level of engagement of young Albanians with their national history, and their relationship to Albania’s past and future. Cousins responded:

“Most people [in Albania], young and old, realise that they have a toxic history. But one of the reasons why I think that I felt strongly that I wanted to make this film, was that I realised that every country has a toxic history. . . . England, Ireland and Scotland all have toxic histories. Right down the road from me there are big, fancy houses built from the slave trade . . . so I think there is a sense of solidarity in common humanity.”

Cousins concluded from his ‘study of looking’ that, with regard to the future, young Albanians had “a degree of optimism, but a massive amount of caution, and that’s what I tried to capture in the film”.

Cousins closed the discussion with an impassioned response to an audience member’s suggestion that the film expressed a certain sympathy for Hoxha’s communist dictatorship:

“I absolutely believe in equality, I absolutely believe that . . . the idea of serfdom . . . is one of the biggest crimes in history. Anything that tried to redress that, started out good. However, I ended up furious with Hoxha before I went there. . . . He poisoned this principle which is so important for emancipation and equality around the world.”

To find out more about the current plight of the Albanian Film Archive, and the work of activists to restore it, visit the site of the Albanian Cinema Project.
To watch the trailer for Here Be Dragons, and to keep up to date on upcoming filmic collaborations between Mark Cousins and Don Boyd, visit the website of HiBROW, and click here to follow the film on Facebook.

[vimeo clip_id=”68298226″ width=”400″ height=”225″]

In the past, the term ‘Here Be Dragons’ was used by cartographers to indicate an unexplored area on a map, in fear of what could lurk there. In his new essay film, Mark Cousins goes on an explorative journey through Albania, interweaving views of the capital Tirana and its inhabitants with old film clips, painting a picture of the political and cultural landscape.

Through inescapable architectural structures Cousins learns about Albania’s past. He discovers that the movie prints in the national film archive are decaying and begins to ask bigger questions about history and memory. Perhaps a country whose 20th Century was so traumatic, dominated by authoritarian ruler Enver Hoxha, should allow its film heritage to fade away?

With his distinctive imagination and sense of humour, Cousins has created a rich and textured piece of work. He takes us on a poetic and inspiring personal journey that opens new horizons that go beyond the Albanian story.

Directed by Mark Cousins
Duration: 73′
Year: 2013

By Nicole Hunt

Though it’s sometimes difficult to keep track of which Silvio Berlusconi trial is currently in court, Monday sees the resumption of the most infamous of his four cases, in which he faces charges for abuse of power and paying for underage sex. The Italian Senate has approved a motion to move the case from Milan’s court to a special minister’s court, but the case remains in Milan while the Constitutional Court mulls the Senate’s request.

The Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly opens, with more attention than usual being paid this time around. On Tuesday, the Assembly debates a motion that would recommend taking action against pre-natal sex selection in Europe, particularly in Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, where the ratio of girls to boys in the population is dropping. On Thursday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas addresses the assembly.

Following a meeting of Eurogroup Finance Ministers on Monday, all EU Finance Ministers convene in Luxembourg on Tuesday, with the focus, as with many things this week, squarely on Greece. Discussions are also expected on an EU financial transaction tax, after the European Commission published proposals last week.

In direct response to the austerity measures being so closely watched by the European Finance Ministers, Greek public sector workers hold a 24-hour strike on Wednesday, calling the cuts ‘barbaric’. A general strike is also planned for 19 October.

Meanwhile, in Brussels, German Chancellor Angela Merkel attends the weekly meeting of the European College of Commissioners. At NATO headquarters, NATO Defence Ministers hold a regular meeting to discuss operational issues, with Libya topping the agenda.

Former Bosnian-Serb Army Commander Ratko Mladic is back in court in The Hague on Thursday. Since his last appearance on 25 August, Mladic’s lawyers have requested the names of all 7,000 victims of the Srebrenica massacre as part of their opposition to the indictment.

In Johannesburg, the African National Congress’ disciplinary committee resumes hearing the charges against controversial youth leader Julius Malema, who is accused of interrupting an ANC Officials meeting alongside three other men. Malema faces separate charges of bringing the ANC into disrepute and sowing divisions within ANC ranks, which will be heard separately once this case has concluded. It’s currently scheduled to last two days, but has already been delayed several times.

Friday is, oddly, both the 10 year anniversary of the beginning of the War in Afghanistan and also the date for the announcement of the winner of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo. Anti-war activists hold mass demonstrations in London and Washington on Saturday, while the Peace Prize will be presented to the winner on 10 December.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu celebrates his 80th birthday and a year since he stepped down from public duties. Three days of celebrations are being held in Cape Town, and a new biography is being released to mark the day.

Spanish ‘indignant’ activists who have marched 1500km from Madrid are scheduled to arrive in Brussels on Saturday to hold a demonstration against unrepresentative politics. The protesters, who are joined by counterparts from across Europe, plan to hold a week of events, culminating in a large rally on 15 October.

Two elections take place on Sunday: voters in Poland elect 460 members to their lower house and 100 members to their upper house of parliament, while in Cameroon voters elect their president for the next seven years. Incumbent Paul Biya is only the second president since independence in 1960, and has held the post since 1982.

The Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams is in Zimbabwe on Sunday, making him the first high-profile UK official to visit the country since 2001. The visit is part of a three-country pastoral tour which also includes Malawi and Zambia. Williams is expected to meet with President Robert Mugabe, and is scheduled to hold a special service for members of the Anglican Church who have not joined a splinter movement set up by the former Bishop of Harare.