31 minutes | hi8 and digital video | color | sound
Between 1998 and 1999, during the War of Kosovo, hundreds of thousands of Kosovar citizens were forcefully displaced under threat of violence. Many were killed, and many are still yet to be accounted for. In early 2022, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Helena’s mother Marta traveled from Kosovo to live with us in New York for six months, on the remainder of her visa.
This video was made during the mass exodus of Ukrainian citizens from their homes, and considers the geopolitical ramifications of the war in the Western Balkans; specifically Kosovo and Serbia. During this same period, Helena and I recorded various activities and conversations with her mother; cooking, going to the park, talking with friends. Interweaving this highly intimate material with contemporaneous Albanian news broadcasts, this project attempts to navigate the complex intersection of place, time, memory, war, history and modernity.
2022 I Would Have Freed Myself, Millennium Film Workshop - Brooklyn, New York
2022 Split Video Art Exhibit, Prokultura gallery - Split, Croatia
2022 I Would Have Freed Myself, Blackhole Cinematheque at Beauty Supply - Oakland, California