community

11

Hive – A Group of Widows Bond Against the Patriarchy and Grief

Hive

Hive Film Difficulty Ranking: 2

In Hive, a struggling widow starts making Ajvar to get by. Setting an example for self sufficiency, the town’s widows flock to her to share their grief and start healing. However their independence faces backlash from the patriarchy.

From: Kosovo, Europe
Watch: Trailer, JustWatch
Next: Writing With Fire, Beatriz' War, Shok

Hive – The Breakdown

Before watching Hive, all of the films I’d previously watched from Kosovo were affected by the Kosovo war. Whether directly or more indirectly, the trauma of the war that forged the country’s birth just over 20 years ago has never had a chance to heal.

Hive is no different. Fahrije’s husband has been missing for what might be years. Her father in law and two kids still believe he is alive. But she seems to believe he must be dead. Her face has been sucked of all emotion – as pointed out by her daughter – and she has started to move on. She visits mourning sites, such as the river where many local men were killed, and has also taken over some of her husband’s chores (bee keeping). She’s accepted his fate.

In addition to being a mother, Fahrije is forced to assume her husband’s role in his absence. So she seeks work to make a living in a neighboring town. However, she’s ostracized for behaving like a man with locals shooting her threatening stares and throwing bricks at her car and windows. Faithful wives aren’t supposed to learn how to drive and leave the house. In response, Fahrije also subconsciously takes on the stereotypical masculine emotions too, assuming an unemotional stoicism that confuses her kids. She hides her grief so deep to avoid dealing with it.

Her way out is not in independence through work but in company. Her successful Ajvar making business inspirationally brings together other widows together in community. They’re willing to sacrifice their honor because she’s taken the brave step to doing something about her situation and trying to move on.

What to Watch Next

If you’re looking for another inspirational story about a group of entrepreneurial women fighting the odds to succeed, try Writing with Fire. It features India’s only women-run news channel. Or if you’re looking for another story set within another traumatic event, Beatriz’ War follows a widow and her community fighting for freedom in East Timor. Or for more stories from Kosovo, try the tragic short, Shok, and feature film, Three Windows and a Hanging.

12

Alcarras – AFI Fest 2022

Alcarras

The Sole family have farmed fields in the small municipality of Alcarras in Catalonia for generations. However, the wealthy landowner that owns the property has found more profitable ways to use his land, which doesn’t involve farming or what the Sole family wants. He’s looking to destroy the orchards that provide the Sole family’s livelihood to install more profitable solar panels.

What Alcarras does brilliantly is tell a very specific local story in order to highlight how capitalism is affecting not just the Sole family, but the local community and many other people around the globe. It’s set completely in one small municipality in Spain centered one family, all played by non-actors from similar backgrounds to the family on screen, living on one farm. Through the film’s run-time, we get to intimately know each member of the Sole family to understand their life on the farm as well as how they are each affected by the threatening eviction. We see why they love the freedom and independence of farming their own land as well as how they’re pulled apart by an uncertain future. Whilst a multi-family or multi-country film might fail to generate sympathy for it’s characters because of it’s broad scope, Alcarras, in spending time with one family in one region, gives the audience more time and closeness to sympathize with not just them, but everyone affected by capitalism around the world.

The hidden message in Alcarras is that the Sole family’s experience is not isolated to Alcarras, nor Spain. The few short scenes showing the community’s labor strikes, which Quimet and his son join, show that the Sole family’s experiences are not isolated. The priority of progress and profit over personal and community happiness is destroying families across the world.

Head to our AFI Fest 2022 Hub for more reviews from AFI Fest 2022.