Those Sweet Murky Waters

Albanian artist Driant Zeneli returns to Lo Schermo dell’arte with a tribute to ichthyologist Sabiha Kasimati, the first female scientist in Albania. She was arrested by the communist regime in 1951, executed without trial a few days later, and thrown into a mass grave along with 21 other intellectuals. Filmed at Lake Scutari (Syri I Sheganit) and the Vau i Dejës Hydroelectric Power Plant, the film features papier-mâché fish animated by robotic mechanisms, created in collaboration with papier-mâché master Deni Bianco. The film tells the story of the biologist transformed into a fish, who, like a contemporary Prometheus, steals electric light from a dam for the animals living in the murky waters. As a consequence of her actions she is punished by the dam itself, which casts her into a pit along with the other fish, surrounded by stalactites and stalagmites. Through art, memory, ecology, and technology, the film pays homage to a woman who chose to defy politics, social stereotypes, and even death, all in the name of science and freedom. Students from the Tirana Art High School and the School of Electronic Engineering in Tirana and Putignano collaborated on the film.