Title: Shame and Money
Foreign Title:
Year: 2026
Country: Germany/Kosovo/ Slovenia/Albania/ North Macedonia/Belgium
Language: In Albanian with English subtitles
Director: Visar Morina
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Writer/Director Visar Morina delivers a potent illustration of the challenges displaced people face when forced to move from rural self-sufficiency to urban interdependence.
After the sudden loss of their farm and livelihood, the only option a Kosovo family of five has is to relocate to the city. Shaban, the head of the family discovers almost too slowly that culture, routine and traditional family responsibilities do not provide transferable knowledge and skills necessary adapt to change.
Shaban and his family are clumsily helped by Alban (Alban Ukaj), his brother-in-law. This relationship epitomises the economic and cultural distance between rural and urban existence. Shaban’s prideful ignorance causes him to take offense when none is given, and to stay silent when he needs to ask questions; shutting down any substantive help. Alban’s sense of familial obligation provides only superficial help creating an unsustainable dependence, trapping Shaban and his family in a patronising quagmire.
By not paying the price of pride, he incurs the greater costs of humiliation and anger. As his wife, Hatixhe, notes that “shame is a luxury”.
The strong enduring performances of Astrit Kabashi (Shaban) and Fiona Kodheli (Hatixhe) create an atmosphere of bewilderment and desperation which moves from long-suffering frustration to violence to finally resignation.
