Victory Over Death

Under the regime of Enver Hoxha (1944-1985), Albanian film production (one or two films a year) mainly focused on documentaries and heroic melodramas about the Albanian (Communist) resistance to the Italians and the Germans in the Second World War. Victory Over Death is also based on a true story about two young female resistance fighters who were arrested in 1944 in the town of Gjirokastra in southern Albania by SS Commander Hans Von Stoltz. If the girls gave him the names of their communist resistance leaders, they would be released. In the film, they defy the tortures of the Gestapo by remembering the most beautiful moments of their lives. In the end they are executed. Later in Gjirokastra, where the film was also shot, a monument for the girls was build.Victory Over Death was a great success in Albania and about 1.5 million people saw the film in the cinemas (the population at the time was two million). Because of the close bonds with China, at least 100 million Chinese were able to see Victory Over Death (as can be seen in the film Electric Shadows, see alongside), until the film was banned in 1972 at the time of the Cultural Revolution. For political reasons, the protagonist Edi Luarasi was declared persona non grata in her own country. Her husband (a well-known theatre director) was imprisoned for seven years.