Alban Hajdinaj

Film & Video (Film & Video)

Wash and Go (2001) is divided into two stages and operates like a slide show. In the first part, the camera scans the interior of an apartment, focusing on elements of daily life to finally settle and frame a bottle of shampoo with the slogan “Wash and Go.” The camera isolates the word “Go ” and slides over the word “Away”, and then takes focuses on another slogan “The People You Need are only a touch away.” Afterwards, the camera gradually widens its frame to reveal a billboard campaign in the streets of Tirana. The images reveal a devastated city, dotted with scrappy buildings, and urban noises – each of who accompany this vision of abandonment.

Felipe Dulzaides

Film & Video (Film & Video)

I Am Cuba— “Soy Cuba” in Spanish; “Ya Kuba” in Russian—is a Soviet/Cuban film produced in 1964 by director Mikhail Kalatozov at Mosfilm. The movie was not well received by the Russian or Cuban public and was almost completely forgotten until its rediscovery thirty years later by American filmmakers. The movie’s acrobatic tracking shots and idiosyncratic mise-en-scène prompted Hollywood directors like Martin Scorsese to campaign to restore the movie in the early 1990s.