Author: Max Mönch, Philip Vogt. Camera: Gerd Breiter. Sound: Konstantin Kirilow. Editing: Philip Vogt. Music: Nikko Weidemann. Re-recording mixer: Mathis Nitschke. Production: Polyeides Medienkontor München Berlin.
Length: 82 min.
Zef Sokoli is the Bajraktar of the Dukagjin – “he who holds the flag,” who calls his men together with a rifle shot and leads them to war when someone threatens his mountain villages in Northern Albania. He has three sons, and someday he will choose one of them as his successor. It’s tradition. But the sons don’t agree on which of them would be the most capable tribal leader. They stand uncertainly between two worlds: the archaic world of the mountains and the modern city down in the valley. The people still come to the clan chief’s stone defense tower in the mountains, seeking his advice and asking him to mediate arguments. Arguments that often end in death here. Zef Sokoli has reconciled hundreds of blood feuds in the last century. But his kingdom is falling apart. The “mountain people” feel the call of the valley.
After the autumn harvest, the Bajraktar leaves his ancestral house and goes down into the city. Here, two worlds are colliding. Zef Sokoli and his sons stand between them. The clans bring their archaic laws with them, and the police watch helplessly as acts of blood revenge are committed in the middle of the city. Some hope for a reconciliation of the feuds through the Bajraktar. But he has trouble with the young men, who don’t want to listen to him anymore. Even his sons begin looking for their futures down in the city rather than in the archaic mountain world. And this calls the tradition of their family into question.
Will there be a successor for the Bajraktar?
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