BLOODLANDS

Skender, an irascible and old-fashioned butcher, is the kind of patriarch we do not want to upset, especially when he plays with a cleaver on the carcass of a sheep. Yet his two children have dreams a little more ambitious than selling some guts in the family business. But Skender and his family are in for something much more radical than a family dispute. A mundane altercation with street kids turns into a nightmare when the scoundrels return to their clan, hidden in the mountains. They’re particularly spiteful and send a few men to teach the butcher a lesson. But good old Skender does not hesitate to return in kind with his rifle. This leaves a corpse outside the house and if there’s one tradition Albania upholds, it’s blood vengeance! Australian-Albanian Steven Kastrissios already surprised in 2009 with The Horseman, the first Albanian genre movie. Fascinated by the legends and traditions of the country, he has infused Bloodlands with an atmosphere worthy of the brothers Grimm and a dash of witchcraft.