"Silence of sirens" sounds inside the pyramid of corruption

The title is the first counterpoint as a call to turn on the sirens in the fight against corruption. Sirens are also related to the police, which is the subject of the film "Silence of Sirens" written and directed by Gazmend Nela, in the official competition at the 16th edition of "PriFilmFest". The local premiere has arrived, after a journey through world festivals, corruption is universal and the film tries to hit it in this form. The characters face the temptation of money and together they breathe inside the pyramid of corruption, while "Silence..." also moves to the ethical plane

In the film "Silence of Sirens", the philosophy starts from the title to the breakdown of the theme. There is the background of the creation of a tangle of events, which has its genesis in a momentary deviation. When dishonorable work is for a moment put on the rails to punish the powerful, it results in self-sinking. A pyramid of corruption is gradually revealed, while the position of the media there is a tool to divert attention from this event. The main character is put on an impossible mission: to find the culprit by being himself. And what is known is that the same cause silences sirens and makes them echo. 

This story was revealed to the audience of the international film festival "PriFilmFest" on the fourth night of the 16th edition. The seats in the "Kino Armata" hall were all occupied for the film that was given its national premiere on Friday night. Previously, the film written and directed by Gazmend Nela had an international journey, where, among other things, the story unfolded in Brazil and Germany. 

The world premiere was given last November at the 47th edition of the São Paulo Film Festival in the "New Filmmakers" category. It has found its way to the local public, where the topic is best understood and experienced. 

The narrative opens with a scene of the main character, played by actor Sunaj Raça, walking naked on the street. It is just one sequence of the long punishment that Avni experiences. It is quickly displaced by the launch of a corruption scheme. There is the journey of two traffic policemen in their work routine. Bribery is one of the things that has become normal. 

It is also a kind of rebellion of the main character as a servant in the position, in which he has been engaged for 20 years, without being promoted. The turning point in his life comes when, on an ordinary night, he and his colleague come across a car that almost hits them. The driver is a war crimes prosecutor, drunk and carrying a large sum of money. 

The scheme of corruption is a chain. When the main character - greedy for money, maybe also because of the difficult life - decides to put this powerful person before the law by equating him with everyone else, he costs him his job. Suspended for six months. The Police Commander orders the prosecutor to be released, while their superiors use the media as a channel to mask this part. 

The money is not declared and the issue of the prosecutor's detention is not registered either. When the main character returns to get his belongings, in the facility where the security cameras are out of order, he uses the opportunity to gain an advantage. Steals a significant amount of undeclared money. 

What comes to the fore in this film is that their conversations and thoughts are contradictory. They live in the place where they implement it, for which they are against and choose the easiest path of their mission in life. The irony comes when the characters cannot report the cases in the institution that has been their home for decades. 

The film is built from a mosaic of dramas that are gradually revealed. The director and screenwriter of the film "Silence of Sirens", Gazmend Nela, said that this was the concept for the film from the beginning. 
"Whenever I start to build a film, I always think about what kind of film I would like to see and usually those films are the ones that don't give much information, but give me certain points that I can put together and create the mosaic or the idea my about the movie. I tried to do this with this film", said the director Nela. 

He said that the idea was for the actors to appear as natural as possible in the role as he wanted everything to be presented in a simple way. 

"Not only in film, but I believe that in any form of art, simplicity, which I don't know if I have achieved, is very difficult. It is a character, an ordinary policeman, but who at a certain moment is in a moment, in extraordinary circumstances, provoked. As simple as it is, it is so difficult to achieve. For me, the film does not end there, it ends when the viewer sees it, not only when the work is done", said Nela. 

The mission to find the money is full of drama. The main character is followed by two people who pressure and torture him. He understands that they are engaged by the Mayor of the Municipality, who is his wife's brother. He had bribed the war crimes prosecutor to get his case closed. It is later revealed that in addition to the main character, two others were also involved in this theft. Joy, his closest colleague also turns out to be his daughter's boyfriend. 
The actor Allmir Suhodolli, who plays the role, emphasized the director's request that the character behave as naturally as possible. 

"Each role we take on, the challenges are the same, but what distinguishes the role from the role is the narrative it conveys. What is worth noting is that we did not keep much evidence. It was the director's choice that we have naturalness in the scenes and I believe it worked well. We built the role ourselves, normally we had many discussions", said the actor Suhodolli. 

He said that since the subject of the film is not unknown, this made the work process easier. 

"I had to consult a lot with the director, because there are twists and turns one after another. It seems very simple, but there are many complications and different twists that we have tried to keep as secret as possible until the end. With many discussions with the director, we have managed to narrow it down to this point and I believe we are all happy with the result. The process was very good, except that it was very cold", he said. 

Armenis Nokshiqi, Kumrije Hoxha, Rina Krasniqi and Basri Lushtaku are part of the cast of the film. 
The latter has the role of an honest policeman who tries to give justice to the professional work of the main character. 

"My role is that of a policeman who devotes himself to law and order properly. He is not one of those corrupt people, although maybe his conscience when he sees all that money, he gets that adrenaline to kidnap someone, but above all, one thing must be understood that both the police and everyone are people who sometimes have such smokes as may cause them to become corrupt. Such is money", said actor Basri Lushtaku. 

He said that the impact of the film, more than a narrative, is the unfolding of a problem. 

"I think that we should pay more attention to art and culture, because through them many shortcomings and work are revealed, because we also understand some problems, we understand our society. The topics that we touch as filmmakers are numerous, we also open topics that have their own question marks as to whether it is true or not. But when you see, for example, our Police, which is one of the least corrupt, we have a very honest Police and I am proud of them and what they have achieved so far," he said.