‘Hive’ Writer-Director Blerta Basholli & Star Yllka Gashi On How One Woman’s War Story Formed Kosovo’s Oscar Entry – Contenders International

When Kosovan writer-director Blerta Basholli met war widow Fahrije Hoti, the subject of her new feature film Hive, she was immediately struck by her strength of character and personality, which helped shape how she would approach making a feature film based on the story of Hoti’s life after the Kosovo War.

Speaking at Deadline’s Contenders Film: International awards-season event, Basholli said she knew she had to make a character-based film because she wanted the audience to “connect to the character.”

“The story is interesting and I could make many films about [Fahrije’s] life and what she went through during the war and after the war but it was actually her character and her personality that really had a great impact on me and on all of us,” said Basholli. “It was only after I met her that I realized what kind of film this was going to be and this was going to be a really character-based film and I will focus the story on her, the camera on her.”

Hive is a searing drama based on the true story of Fahrije who, like many of the other women in her patriarchal village, has lived with fading hope and burgeoning grief since her husband went missing during the war in Kosovo in the late 1990s. In order to provide for her struggling family, she pulls the other widows in her community together to launch a business selling ajvar, a local food product from peppers and eggplants, and together they find healing and solace in considering a future without their husbands.

The Albanian-language title, which is being distributed in the U.S. by Kino Lorber and Zeitgeist Films, became the first film to win all three of the main awards at the Sundance Film Festival’s World Cinema Dramatic Competition earlier this year.

Yllka Gashi, who plays the lead role, noted that shooting this film, which sheds a light on the after-effects war can have on a society, forced them to confront their own experiences in dealing with the aftermath of the Kosovo War.

“We are kids that were raised in war and by war,” said Gashi. “And it’s not just the time when the NATO air strikes began, it’s way before that. We lived during the 1990s and it was a bad time to be a kid in Kosovo.”

Gashi added: “We cried at times. We did. We shared stories that are not fun to share. But when you share those, you feel better. It’s kind of a therapy.”

Check out the panel video above.