House with a Voice tells the story of six Burrneshas who, for different reasons, have decided to take on the social role of men. They have done this to circumvent patriarchal structures, to avoid misogynistic attacks, to support the family economically, to avoid compelled marriage and to be free. Our characters communicate with us intimately as they talk about their lives and bring us closely into their personal journey. They speak about freedom and oppression, about the promise of sacrificing their lives for the sake of their families’ survival. But also about the breaking of gender barriers and the power of the human mind to decide who we want to be. The film turns stereotypes and projections of gender discussions upside down. The Burneshas expand our awareness of human life and its universal conditions but in the end their story shows that the essences of life, which are identified as female, are held as less valuable, even less worth living. And that this remains so, worldwide.
House with a Voice
- Kristine Nrecaj, Birthe Templin
- Germany
- 2024
- 87 mins
- Sat Jan 25
- 2:15 PM
- Market Hall
- Virtual / Hybrid Available
House with a Voice is about six women in a patriarchal society, about six different life stories and one mutual decision: giving up femininity and living as men to gain a voice, to experience personal freedom and to fight for equality. To be a real Burrnesha.
- Albanian, English
- Captioned in English
- Art and Culture, Feminist Issues
About the Filmmaker
- www.housewithavoice.com
- https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100077760691390
- Filmmaker: Kristine Nrecaj, Birthe Templin
- Producer: Katrin Springer
Kristine Nrecaj was born in Bavaria and had Albanian roots. After graduating from high school, she studied theater and film at the Free University of Berlin. In 2003 she made the documentary film “Kosowo”. In 2014, her fictional short film “Of Dogs and Lions” was screened at national and international film festivals. It received the award for best director and best female lead at the Kosovo Film Festival. She developed a script for a long fiction movie which was selected at “Debut im Ersten”. 2016, she started developing a feature-length documentary about Burrneshas in Albania. 2018 her movie “The sworn virgin and the Girl”was screened at national and international filmfestivals. 2020 she completed a training as a non-medical practitioner in psychotherapy. In 2021 she made the documentary “Noa-remembering against forgetting “, which themed the relationship between her daughter Noa and her mother suffering from dementia.
Birthe Templin is an independent film director based in Berlin. After growing up in Northern Germany and Argentina she was educated in Filmmaking at the London Film Academy and Andzrej Wajda Master School of Film Directing in Warsaw. She directed and partly produced with her production company Ipanema film award winning fiction and documentary films for cinema, TV, Museums and educational platforms: Lübbos wife is waiting, What remains, The sworn virgin and the girl. Next to her current cinema documentary House with a Voice she is preparing to change the format with a feature length fiction film.