The working title of my film is “How I Met Your…” – the original inspiration for the film came from hearing numerous stories about how many married people live double lives. They are married, they have children, but they have another life. I then remembered an idea that I had years ago, when somebody asked me if I was on the [gay dating app] Grindr and I didn’t know what Grindr was. It got me interested in thinking about how people meet here in Kosovo, as we still have this mentality. How do people recognize each other: Where do they meet? What do they want? How do they maintain the relationships they have?
I quietly studied this for 4 years, just listening to different stories and then I reached a moment when I said, “Okay now I have a story to tell, and I can make it a film”, so now I have this story that I love. It’s based on real stories from real people. I would call it documentary because it’s based on reality, but it will also have actors to reenact the voices from the stories I collected.
What are you striving to achieve with this film?
I was thinking about this, because we have a lot of people who fight for the LGBTIQ+ community’s rights. But, perhaps, my idea is to show this film, not just to the LGBTIQ+ community, but to other people so they can see how the community here suffer. Just for a meeting, just one date, what they need to go through to be themselves.
I think that within the LGBTIQ+ community they show films, they show cultural work, but it’s only shown to the LGBTIQ+ community, and not beyond. I don’t think that is my aim. I want my work to be shown in schools – to show people, what the LGBTIQ+ community goes through for doing what they want. So my goal is to try to reach those people with this film. I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t want to educate people. I think people will see the film and reflect on their own behavior, which they’re often unaware of.
