22 November | A documentary film about the effect on mixed nationality couples by the totalitarian regime of Enver Hodja in Albania was shown on Wednesday in Sofia, as part of the programme of the Kinomania Film Festival.

Directed by Bulgarian Adela Peeva, the film traces the fates of three Albanian men and their foreign wives. In 1961, when Albania broke off its relations with the Soviet Union and Eastern Block countries, Albanian men married to foreign women were forced to separate from them, while the women were accused of foreign espionage and either sent back to their countries or imprisoned.

While some couples managed to stay together and others divorced or separated, Hodja’s regime’s drive to get rid of the “public enemies” ruined many people’s lives whose only crime was loving one another.

This is not the first film that Bulgarian director Adela Peeva makes about the Balkans. In her 2003 documentary, Who’s is this song?, she tried to track down the origins of a song that each Balkan country claimed as its own.

Sofia’s Kinomania Film Festival continues until November 29. A selection of films that have not been shown in Bulgaria until now can be seen.

Divorce Albanian Style will be shown next at the end of November, at the International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam.