At the Movies: A Journey to Freedom -- a documentary on the legacy of Communist Albania
From the film's website:
A Journey to Freedom is a feature-length documentary that examines the legacy of Communist Albania through the intimate lens of two families. In 1944, dictator Enver Hoxha rose to power, sinking Albania into a totalitarian ruin. At the center of the film are the director’s grandfather, Tomor Selenica, and great-grandfather, Alush Lleshanaku, two men whose lives were shaped by resistance, survival, and loss under Hoxha’s totalitarian regime. Tomor Selenica escaped a labor prison while Alush Lleshanaku advanced in the ranks of one of the largest anti-communist resistance groups.
The narrative moves between past and present, assembling a nonlinear chronology in which historical events such as foreign occupation, ideological alignment, purges, and eventual political collapse intersect with lived experiences and those who endured them. Through family testimony, archival materials, and present-day footage, the film reconstructs their trajectories, from political imprisonment and illness to attempted escape and exile, and, in Alush’s case, death at the hands of the regime. These individual histories unfold within the larger story of Albania’s transformation into one of the most repressive and isolated states of the twentieth century.
The scope of the film extends beyond the family through conversations with historians, writers, political figures, and a psychologist, including professors Gazmend Kapllani and Enriketa Papa. These voices provide context while also introducing tension between public narrative and private experience. Psychologist Sonila Sejdaras, for instance, offers a framework for understanding how trauma persists across generations, deepening the film’s emotional and psychological dimension.
A Journey To Freedom amplifies the voices of the silenced. Rather than presenting history as stable or complete, like a set of facts coldly written out in a textbook, the film reveals the past as contested and fragmentary, shaped as much by personal memory as by official record.
A raw, emotional investigation of a history written by the oppressor and now gathered by Director Anisa Selenica, the descendant of these two brave men.
This is the story of two families surviving and fighting against a dictatorship, gaining independence both in America and Albania. While the film offers a glimpse into Albania’s past and its continued struggle to define its place in the contemporary global context, we learn about the turmoil of younger generations as they grow further removed from the realities of communism and the resilience of their predecessors.
