THE CALL

Short Talk with Mirak Zymberaj (director)

Kosovo / 2023 / 10’18’’

BEST FICTION FILM Category

21st IN THE PALACE International Short Film Festival 2024

Synopsis: An accidental conflict between two brothers ends tragically. The younger brother, while they are fixing their father's grave, kills the older brother in a scuffle, accusing the older brother of stealing everything from him in this life. The gravedigger, who sees the brothers' fight from afar, arrives after a while at their father's grave and finds the revolver on the ground. The brothers' mother arrived in the meantime and found gravedigger with her husband's revolver in her hand. She asks him about the boys and kills the gravedigger, suspecting that he has a hand in her boys' disappearance. In the run up we see the little brother running and regretting killing his brother. While the mother is looking for the boys we realize that the little brother has buried the big brother in their father's grave.

Biography: Mirak Zymberaj is a Kosovar film director who holds a degree in Film and TV Directing from the University of Prishtina. Following his graduation, he established himself as both a screenwriter and director, working on numerous short films and original scripts, with his work earning recognition at several international film festivals. Through his growing body of work, Zymberaj continues to explore complex themes and push the boundaries of short-form cinema, contributing to the evolving voice of contemporary Kosovar film.

Mirak Zymberaj, director

Vera Chandelle: The movie, as I felt it, is about grief, anger and jealousy, is it the same for you?

Mirak Zymberaj (director): The film is like a puzzle, a bit of family drama and the tragic end that happens to the family. The call of the mother and the gunshot were the two elements that made the tragedy in “The Call”.

Vera Chandelle: During the film the viewer could feel the anger between the two brothers. Is the scene at the grave the moment for the characters to realize that sometimes we wait for something big to happen in order to be honest?

Mirak Zymberaj: Yes exactly, like a screenwriter, me and my team worked much with incorporation with Myrak, but I agree with you completely, because like a parent we often forget to tell good thing to our kids and that we take care for them, but we must talk about it and not neglect it. We can see in the film that the previous conflict was not such a big deal and it was mostly jealousy. The smaller brother thinks that he is not loved equally like his big brother. Later this emotion is accentuated by what happens at the grave, because after the death of their father, the younger brother does not feel and sees the caring from his mother and brother. The calls from the mother to the older son are like arguments to his anger. In the end of this scenario what is very important for me is that the mother does not know what happened to her sons. At the end the calling was heard from inside the grave.



Vera Chandelle: What was the message that you wanted to send to the audience?

Mirak Zymberaj: We put a lot of small messages in the film, but the main ones are that our fate sometimes is coming through interesting ways and we must learn from the signs we receive. A small thing could lead to a big tragedy. 

Vera Chandelle: Could we imagine that the older brother had the chance to change his fate if he had read the signs?

Mirak Zymberaj: Managing to read the messages is important for every human. Everything in the film is made with a lot of details. Conflict comes slow and normally.



Vera Chandelle: We can still see from the silence of the younger brother that he is not feeling good and it creates tension between him and his sibling.

Mirak Zymberaj: We can also see that he has something in mind from the beginning, he had something much more that he kept inside from the start of the film.

Vera Chandelle: Tell me more about the role of your character in the film.

Mirak Zymberaj: I am myself an actor, but when I wrote the characters in the beginning, I did not write the character for me. Each one of them is very specific and they go into conflict very fast. My character does not want to go between these two brothers, but after the shotgun he had the dilemma whether or not to intervene. In my opinion he made a mistake, but I created him that way.