The Forgiveness of Blood 2011

Intrigued by newspaper accounts of young men in modern Albania caught up in blood feuds, American director Joshua Marston schooled himself in their rigorous ancient code of honour, and fed what he learned into this exposé/suspense drama. Seventeen-year-old Nik harbours 21st-century aspirations but there are 15th-century shackles around his feet: his father and uncle have killed a neighbour, and the aggrieved family has the right to kill Nik if he ever leaves the house. Never told by his fugitive father exactly what has happened, but always told exactly what to do, Nik begins to see that breaking the cycle may entail breaking with family. Working with a largely non-professional cast in a language he doesn’t understand and in a country with scant film production of its own, Marston achieves the same arresting combination of documentary grit and dramatic tension that characterised his similarly conceived Maria Full of Grace (NZIFF04). — BG