The critically acclaimed Albanian-Kosovo production, Hive, is scheduled for release in UK cinemas on 18th March. The film courted a wide array of success at film festivals, most notably at Sundance last year when it set new records despite being a foreign language film.
Hive became the first film in history to win all three major awards at Sundance, the Audience Award, the Directing Award, and the Grand Jury Prize. Hive also made the shortlist for Best International Feature at the upcoming 2022 Academy Awards but sadly did not make the list of final nominees.
The film follows the incredible true story of a young war widow who defied the patriarchal traditions to provide for her family after her husband is killed in the conflict. Fahrije Hoti (portrayed by Yllka Gashi) set about founding and managing a successful business making and selling jars of a red pepper relish popular with locals.
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Hoti is initially shunned by her traditional community, but the success of her enterprise eventually inspires more women to get involved as the business continues to grow and flourish. It’s a moving story of a woman who must overcome her own hardship while battling prejudice all around her.
The film is a passion project for writer/director Blerta Basholli. The Kosovan filmmaker was personally inspired by Hoti’s story to pursue her own career ambitions in a similar environment whilst she was growing up. Whilst Basholli intended to raise Hoti’s inspiring tale, the real aim of Hive is to provide a human face to the casualties of war and the hardship of those forced to live through it.
What’s Hive About?
Hive is set to arrive in UK cinemas at an unfortunately poignant time as it bears some precedent to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. The film is set during the aftermath of the Kosovan War, a major conflict during the Yugoslav Wars of the ’90s that saw the collapse of Yugoslavia into several ethnically diverse states.
Speaking to Reuters, Baholli stated: “(Hoti) inspired me a lot. She really encourages me to never stop. So I want that to be the main line of the film. And then, through her, showing the consequences of war, just to say how that war benefits no one; in Ukraine, in Kosovo, nowhere.”
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, as it was officially known, held close ties with the former Soviet Union, and the pair’s subsequent collapses were almost intertwined. The fall of communist influences in Eastern Europe was a significant instigator behind the Yugoslav Wars, which began in 1991, the same year as the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Vladimir Putin actually cited NATO’s controversial intervention in the Kosovo War as proof of the ongoing aggressive and anti-Slavic sentiment harbored by the organization that has, in his mind, made his incursion into Ukraine necessary and inevitable. So Hive is sure to hit a sympathetic and frighteningly real message when it arrives in UK cinemas later this month.
Following the Yugoslav Wars, Kosovo was actually not recognized by the international community because of the controversy surrounding its inception and its borders remain disputed to this day. The state exists in the south of Serbia, nestled between two other nations that formed from the collapse of Yugoslavia, North Macedonia and Montenegro.
