In a traditional village in Kosovo, a year after the war (2000) when people are rebuilding their lives, the female school teacher Lushe is driven by her inner conscience to give an interview to an international journalist, telling her that she and three other women from the village were raped by Serbian forces. When the news is published, the male villagers start being suspicious about their wives. As soon as they realise that it was Lushe who spoke to the journalist, they start to stigmatise her and her little boy, asking her to leave the village, and trying to find out if their own wives were among those raped.
A critical view of a society that still struggles with gender inequality and a harrowing tale about a Kosovan patriarchal microcosm forced to come to terms with the raping of women by Serb forces during the war.
"Three Windows and a Hanging has a very tough theme. It was not easy to make a film about it. The characters are psychologically complex, always on the edge of certain emotions. I did not want to make a film that was hard to watch, but I still didn't want to avoid the drama and relations between the characters." (Isa Qosja)
Isa Qosja
Born in Vusanje, Montenegro, in 1949. An Albanian film director and professor at the University of Priština, Qosja has made a number of art and documentary films. Proka has featured at many international festivals, including the Cannes Film Festival. Three Windows and a Hanging is the first Kosovan film to be submitted for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
filmography
1978 Poseta u noći (short)
1978 Klub samoubica (short)
1979 Kur pranvera xhirohet (short doc)
1980 I Drug Tito Ljubljana (short doc)
1982 Ne oret e vona (TV series)
1984 Proka
1988 Rojet e mjegulles
2005 Kukumi
2014 Tri Dritare dhe nje Varje (Three Windows and a Hanging)