Honeymoons

Honeymoons, the 15th feature by the prize-winning Serbian director Goran Paskaljevic, is special if only because it is the first Serbian-Albanian coproduction in history. Serbia and Albania have been hostile to each other for as long as anyone can remember. The idea of Honeymoons came about when Paskaljevic was invited several years ago to show three of his films in Tirana and found there, to his surprise, many like-minded Albanians. He also discovered that Albanians and Serbians have a lot in common, especially the deeply cherished desire to belong in Europe. The Serbian-Albanian cooperation that resulted went surprisingly smoothly, despite the language problems. The film describes, in parallel montage, the stories of an Albanian and a Serbian couple. For various reasons, both pairs of newlyweds go in search of happiness in Western Europe, but that turns out to be far from easy for migrants from the Balkans.