AMNESTY

A man and a woman in contemporary Albania, each with a partner serving time in the same Tirana jail. Thanks to recently liberalized regulations, conjugal visits are permitted on the fifth of every month. Spetim lives in the capital city, but Elsa travels by bus to Tirana for her monthly visit. Long out of work, she lives with her two sons in her tyrannical father-in-law’s impoverished rural household. Spetim and Else are unhappy in their marriages but endure the monthly sexual ritual with a mixture of repulsion and indifference. After the two meet by chance, they embark on a tender love affair that promises a chance to start all over again. Then the government announces a general amnesty, and their partners are released. The situation threatens to escalate. With few words and in finely composed images, Bujar Alimani tells a love story on the brink of tragedy. His camera concentrates on the two main characters: the faces of their spouses are not shown once. Despite this intimacy, AMNESTY also takes stock of Albania as it is now: a country blighted by unemployment, economic distress and patriarchal structures – a land in search of a new identity.