Hive

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Hoping to provide for their families, struggling widows start a business to sell a local food product. Together, they find healing and solace in the new venture, but their will to live independently is soon met with hostility.

Fahrije Hoti, the protagonist of Kosovan filmmaker Blerta Basholli’s debut film, is a real person. After her husband went missing during the Kosovo War in 1999, she learnt to drive and founded a business selling local delicacies – much to the displeasure of the deeply conservative, patriarchal community. Basholli discovered the story via a local news report.

Yllka Gashi’s portrayal of Hoti is excellently controlled, as external forces (the search for a missing husband; an overwhelmingly hostile community; the relentless pressures of parenthood) constrict the socially acceptable range of emotions. Her bravery as the first to break free of restrictive gendered traditions brings the reward of a supportive collective of female coworkers, and with it moments of fleeting but warmly-felt joy. (Sight and Sound)

100% score on Rotten Tomatoes!

"Gashi's sturdy, no-nonsense portrayal of a sturdy, no-nonsense woman doesn't traffic in cheap inspiration and neither does Basholli's film." - Detroit News

This film is F-Rated. The F-Rating is applied to all films which are directed by women and/or written by women. Find out more about F-Rating.

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