Hive

Countless film awards have been given to this moving drama by Blerta Basholli. She has succeeded in creating an understated yet incredibly focused and socially relevant narrative about female empowerment. Fahrije’s husband has been missing since the end of the war in 1999 – like so many men from her village, somewhere in the middle of nowhere in Kosovo. As if this painful uncertainty were not enough, the family also faces financial hardship. When the bees she keeps produce hardly any honey, Fahrije (Yllka Gashi) decides to get her driver’s license and earn money in town by selling homemade ajvar, a roasted pepper paste. The production of ajvar becomes a quiet act of rebellion against the ever-present expectation that widows must remain passive. Accordingly, the traditional patriarchal village community views Fahrije’s actions with suspicion and openly condemns her efforts. But Fahrije refuses to be intimidated. Her cooperative allows other women to break free from paralysis and feelings of helplessness, helping them reclaim autonomy and take their lives back into their own hands. “In a balancing act between social‑realist melodrama and a stylized happy ending, the film offers a complex character study of a strong‑willed woman. Quiet yet powerful, it captures the gradual healing of a deeply traumatized village community. – Recommended." (Lexicon of International Films) The film is deeply rooted in the real history of the massacre of Krusha e Madhe: in 1999, Serbian troops murdered 140 men there, many of whose bodies remain missing to this day. The community of women that emerged from this tragedy — one of the central reference points of the film — is portrayed with great sensitivity, as is their collective effort to reclaim dignity and self‑determination.