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Now Playing at the Packard Campus Theater (April 25 – 27, 2019)

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The following is a guest post by Jenny Paxson of the Packard Campus.

Tomka and His Friends (Shqiperia e re, 1977)

Thursday, April 25 (7:30 p.m.)
Tomka and His Friends (Shqipëria e Re, 1977)
The shorts and features of director Xhanfise Keko, all of which center on children’s themes and preoccupations, occupy a pivotal yet controversial place in Albanian cinema. These films were among the most popular of Albania’s Communist era, and remain widely loved. But this affection is now tempered with ambivalence about their association with an era many Albanians would prefer to forget. Keko was the only female Albanian feature film director in the Kinostudio era, which ended in 1996. When she died in 2007, she left behind a remarkable legacy of nearly a dozen features virtually unknown to outside audiences. This English-subtitled restoration of Tomka and His Friends is a rare chance to look at moving images from a society that was closed off from the rest of the world for decades. It tells a compelling story of a group of young boys working to defend their homeland from the occupying German army in the town of Berat around 1943. Preserved by the Library of Congress Film Preservation Lab in 2015 in coordination with the Albanian National Film Archive and the Albanian Cinema Project. 74 min.

Friday, April 26 (7:30 p.m.)
Pre-Code Double Feature

Night Nurse (Warner Bros., 1931)