Mediterranean Film Festival: KAH KQYRSHA PËRPJETË, E SHIHSA VETEN PËRFUNI – WHEN I LOOK UP, I SEE ME DOWN AGAIN

38th Film Days of the Mediterranean 22.1. – 2.2.2025 Karlstorkino, Marlene-Dietrich-Platz 3, 69126 Heidelberg, admission €10, reduced €7.50, members Medienforum €6, advance ticket sales online: www.filmtage-mittelmeer.de or at Karlstorkino (one hour before the first screening until the last film) or at Montpellier-Haus (during opening hours). In the middle of Europe: a small country squeezed between states that rely ideologically on claimed past empires to cope with the grievances of recent history: Kosovo, sometimes referred to as the “Field of Blackbirds”. The society passes on the pressure from outside internally. In such a society, which cultivates and maintains spaces for heteronormative self-expression and is inherently unaccepting of those who differ from the widely accepted norm, being is almost unbearable. Home is a feeling, they say, but where is home if you are not even allowed to feel at home in your own body and mind? What is the self if it is constantly repressed and rejected? WHEN I LOOK UP, I SEE MYSELF DOWN AGAIN tells stories of queer people from Kosovo who are on a constant search for a safe place where they can be themselves.

Kosovo 2022

Director: Ilir Hasanaj

Documentary film

62 min. | Albanian/English original language

Swiss-Kosovan director Ilir Hasanaj studied film at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdk). His documentary ME DASHT’ ME DASHT’ ME DASHT screened successfully at international festivals. In 2018, he co-founded the alternative cinema ARMATA in Prishtina. He also runs the non-formal NeoSchool Documentary School, which professionally introduces young talents to filmmaking.