Her work at once supports and challenges the systems of both State and Kinostudio. All the while extolling the Communist cause, Keko's protagonists are larger than life, individualistic, and occasionally uncanny. Although superficially closed texts, they are imbued with surprising innovations that encourage the viewer to see beyond the overt dogma of the post-Cultural-Revolution period. On a surface level, these works, which include Tomka dhe shokët e tij/Tomka and His Friends (AL, 1977), Pas gjurmëve/On the Tracks (AL, 1978), and Partizani i vogël Velo/Velo, the Little Partisan (AL, 1980), underscore the firm relationship between cinema, and ideology, and foreground-in particular, the dogmatic demands of the children's film in a country whose cinematic mechanism was tightly controlled.īut to deem Xhanfise Keko's children's films works of pure propaganda would be to misread them on both diegetic and formal levels. Together with Beni, which has been deemed a masterwork of the Albanian cinema, Keko is mostly associated with a series of 'child spy' films made between 19. Best known outside of Albania for her film Beni ecën vetë/Beni Walks On His Own (AL, 1975), Keko was an essential member of the artists who built the New Albania Kinostudio (Kinostudio Shqipëria e Re) in the 1950s. Her name was Xhanfise Keko, and she was indisputably Albania's most highly regarded woman director. And once upon a time, there was a woman in Hoxha's Albania who directed children's films. This country was Comrade Enver Hoxha's Albania, and we knew very little about it. Once upon a time, there was a country where vigilance in service of the State was an expected duty.

Many children's stories begin with the words 'once upon a time.' So does Kusturica in Bila jednom jedna zemlja/Underground (YU, DE, FR, BG, CZ, HU, 1995).

In Hiding we Seek by Keko V