In depth · Balkan cinema
Tirana on film: Kinostudio, Slogans and Bekim Fehmiu
Our long read on Balkan cinema tells the story of the whole region; this page gathers the films, the stars and the places that belong to Tirana, with official trailers wherever they exist.
Updated October 2026
Kinostudio and the classics
Albania’s state film studio, Kinostudio Shqipëria e Re, opened in Tirana in 1952 and made the country’s classics for four decades, among them Xhanfise Keko’s children’s film Tomka and His Friends (1977), a favourite of generations of Albanians.
Slogans: Albania at Cannes
Gjergj Xhuvani’s Slogans (2001), a gentle, very funny satire about a teacher in a 1970s village who must spell out a slogan in stones on the hillside, was the first Albanian film selected for the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes.
Bekim Fehmiu, from Happy Gypsies to Hollywood
Born in Sarajevo in 1936 to an Albanian family, Bekim Fehmiu became an international star in I Even Met Happy Gypsies (1967), played Odysseus in the Italian television Odyssey (1968) and led the Hollywood film The Adventurers (1970).
Today Tirana’s film year peaks with the Tirana International Film Festival in the autumn.
Tirana International Film Festival Cinema in Tirana: the back story Balkan Cinema: our long read on the ULTIMATE Regions guide
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Sources: the Festival de Cannes (festival-cannes.com), the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (oscars.org), the Berlinale and the Venice Biennale archives, the Croatian Audiovisual Centre (havc.hr), the AFI Catalog, the International Film Festival Rotterdam, MoMA, Sixth Tone, SBS and the festival press, checked on 25 October 2026. Trailers are embedded from the official YouTube channels of each film’s producer, distributor or national film centre; where none exists online, we leave it out. Stories about stars and the region are many, and we print only those we can check.