Visar Morina brings his third feature, Shame and Money [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Visar Morina
scheda film], to Sundance’s coveted World Cinema Dramatic competition, making it one of the ten films vying for the strand’s top prize for Best Non-US Feature. Impressively, this will be the second film that the Kosovo-born, Germany-based director has brought to this Sundance competition, the first being his second film, Exile [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Visar Morina
scheda film], which was also Kosovo’s entry for the Oscars. Shame and Money stars Astrit Kabashi and Flonja Kodheli as Shaban and Hatixhe, a Kosovar couple forced to move to Pristina after they can no longer work on their farm. As they work various jobs to survive, they find themselves in a highly transactional world at odds with their values and desires.

Cineuropa: The film’s English title, Shame and Money, differs from its original title (Hatixhja dhe Shabani), which refers to the main married couple. I’m curious as to what the thought was behind this choice – whether practically or thematically – as they feel like two distinct but interrelated ways of viewing the film.
Visar Morina: When I started with the script, I was very much thinking of a kind of fairytale. The two main characters reminded me of my parents – not of them 30 years ago, but what they would be like living now. It was clear very quickly that the basis of the story would be money. When I did research, I was talking to these guys who stand on the street [looking for work], and one guy said something that deeply moved me: “Your mom doesn’t love you when you’re broke.” In Albanian, it doesn’t sound like a rule. It sounds more like a phrase said by someone who is now realising that even a mother’s love has to be bought. In Western society, [the primary way] of insulting someone is by calling them a loser or calling them needy. Both are linked to shame.

While the film centers Hatixhe and Shaban, a larger extended family is represented. Did you pull from certain memories and experiences, or was the family dynamic derived from elsewhere?
I was trying to make each aspect of the film come close to the experiences I had when I was in Kosovo, or when I am there. The village that is mentioned is where I grew up. As a child, I often spent my summer holidays with my aunt and she was this cool lady. When I was doing the auditions and trying to find the right grandmother, I realised that I was actually looking for my aunt, and I wanted her to be in the film.

I think if you are in a society where each greeting is linked to money, it’s not ‘niceness’ on its own – it’s like an invoice. If everything becomes exchanged in terms of money, I think the first thing that dies will be what we call being human. That’s why I was thinking of having the relationship between the couple be as pure as it gets – as little as possible in terms of money. In this environment, the couple being nice toward one another feels almost like a political statement. I thought it would be important that, through the course of the film, Shaban gains a sort of political awareness and an understanding of class.

There’s a sense of urgency to the music and camerawork that is constantly keeping pace with Shaban. How did you work with your cinematographer to foster this style?
I talked a lot about this with Janis Mazuch, who is the DoP and a very close friend of mine. Let’s take the scene when the men are gathered around a car on the street. We did one take where Janis moved a bit behind to show more of them. We could see the whole crowd running to the car, and it felt very dirty. It was funny because he looked at me, and I looked at him, and we both knew this was really not the way to go. We talked a lot about animals because this is a film about work and about dignity. We didn’t want to show anything without dignity. We were also trying to treat the animals like we treat the [human characters].

Could you speak about the intention behind the intensity of some of the sound choices? You also incorporate some elements of Albanian music throughout the film, in both diegetic and nondiegetic form.
I have a bit of a weird relationship with Albanian music. I got to know the richness of Albanian music very late – just a few years ago. I don’t know if everyone has this, but I seem to have a huge base of cheesiness inside me. I don’t know where it comes from. When I’m in Pristina and I hear these guys doing this drum music, I feel hypnotised. I feel like a small boy. I remember being at weddings and watching them and being very impressed. The people [play the drums] for those who come from the West in order for them to give them money. The other thing is, in Kosovo and Albania, music is way more important than writing. It’s a culture that keeps stories alive by telling them and through music. For example, the song when they are on the bus [at the beginning of the film], it immediately reminds me of my mom.