Albanian film director Ervin Lera is currently participating in the Amsterdam International Film Festival with his film "Emancipation of the Crowds".
The film is triggered by the protests of Albanian students during 2018 and tries to explain the needs of society to develop through revolts.
The documentary "Emancipation of the Crowds", created by Albanian director and screenwriter Ervin Lera, is taking part this weekend at the World International Film Festival Amsterdam.
After a successful premiere in Tirana last spring, the film participated also in the Puglia International Film Festival in Italy, Dormeo Films (Dormeo Films Puglia International Film Festival ”.
But what are the messages of the movie "Crowd Emancipation"? Author Ervin Lera says he got the first impetus from Albanian student protests two years ago.
"The idea came to me from the amazing and very beautiful similarity between the student protests in Tirana in 2018 and the yellow-vest in Paris. I was then in Paris, where I stayed for about a month. I saw that the developments were exactly the same until politics intervened in both movements. I have also said very openly in the film that the student protest was amazing and a model protest for the whole world and not only for Albania, until the moment when politics and political media intervened in this protest, labeling them as FRESH members, LRI members, FRPD members, etc." said Mr. Lera.
This documentary addresses the dilemmas of Albanian society since after the Second World War until today, whether the uprisings brought development, whether after the revolts benefit mass participants or individuals without merit.
"The crowd is symbolically selected as the visible indicator of a society because the film shows the development of Albanian society, but there is also an international approach because the events and situations that have occurred in Albania have happened everywhere. The film is based on the philosophy of Jose Ortega el Caset, the greatest philosopher of the last century. Even in the middle of Paris, the same events take place as in Tirana, Pristina, Rome, Milan, and other capitals with much more consolidated democracies in the world," says the author.
For the success of this film, the author Lera has collaborated closely with Professor Përparim Kabo, Dr. Afrim Krasniqi and publicist Ben Andoni.
Well-known scholar Përparim Kabo said that "the documentary unravels the challenge of Albanian citizenship to protest for the benefit of oneself or illogical crowding for the benefit of others."
Director Ervin Lera says that the idealism of uprisings and protests is always lost through unexpected turns.
"I think that only the beginnings of uprisings are idealistic, then with their development, any uprising, movement or other forms of reaction that bring development and change, no longer remains idealistic, because from the insurgent or protesting crowds themselves, who demand change, emerge individuals with certain goals, which in most cases are selfish goals. We can say that there is no idealistic uprising until the final," said the author.
The film tries and succeeds in explaining some of the most important events of modern times in Albania from the second half of the last century and the two decades of this new century.