It was a typical spring evening, one of those that blend into a daily routine. Samir Karahoda, a father, was taking his 13-year-old son, Miron, home from basketball practice. He remembers it vividly: it was April 22, 2024. At 9:05 p.m., his phone vibrated. Glancing at the screen, he immediately recognized the French prefix.

“What’s that number?” Miron asked from the passenger seat.

“We’ve been selected for Cannes,” Karahoda replied.

On the other end of the line, he was informed that his latest project, “On the Way,” had been selected to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, competing for the prestigious Palme d’Or for Short Film.

For many directors, such a moment would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. But for Karahoda, it was the second time. Three years earlier, in 2021, he received a similar call when his short film “Displaced” was selected to premiere at Cannes.

This time, with “On the Way,” it was different. The film was the most personal one Karahoda had ever made — so personal that, at the 2024 Toronto Film Festival, it was described as semi-autobiographical.

Miron is at the heart of the film, as the very idea for the film emerged from a conversation Karahoda had with him. Miron had expressed a conviction — one shared by many of his peers — that Kosovo was not a place where one could build a future.

This conversation also unfolds in “On the Way,” where Miron plays himself, while the role of the father is portrayed by Kosovar actor Ylber Mehmeti. The film follows the two on a trip to the airport to collect a gift sent to Miron from abroad. Along the way, they stop to pick up a film festival award the father had won, which had been delivered by mail to Kosovo customs.

In the film, a customs officer recognizes the father and congratulates him on his work, mentioning that even the president of Kosovo had written about his success. Moments later, however, she informs him that to retrieve the award, he must pay a fee of nearly 200 euros, covering postage, storage at the post office and customs charges.

All of this is loosely based on real events. On his way to the airport in 2022, Karahoda had made a similar stop to collect an award from another prestigious film festival, Sundance, for his film “Displaced.” The congratulations from the president were also real; both she and the minister of culture, along with other political representatives, had dedicated posts to celebrating Karahoda’s success. Yet at customs, he was still required to pay.

“Imagine stopping athletes with medals around their necks at the airport as they return from competitions and asking them, ‘Can you pay, please?'” said Karahoda.

On screen, as in life, Karahoda encounters endless and exasperating bureaucracy that makes it feel like nothing ever changes. This profound sense of frustration fuels Karahoda’s work, which began three decades ago.

Unapologetically local

Karahoda’s journey into film began with photography. The turning point came in 1992, during one of the most challenging periods of his life, when he was just 15 years old.

His mother was gravely ill, and every moment was filled with the anxious anticipation of her passing. To help him cope with the weight of this anxiety, his aunt encouraged him to spend time at her sons’ photography shop.

His mother passed away a few days later, but Karahoda continued to visit the photography shop, where he eventually began working. Photography was not new to him; at family gatherings and school events, he was always behind the camera, capturing and preserving memories. He knew the camera was more than just a hobby.

Photo: Majlinda Hoxha / K2.0

In addition to photography, he had dreamed of working on films since childhood. Unlike many aspiring filmmakers, Karahoda did not grow up watching classic movies, reading about directors or frequenting the cinema. Instead, his days were filled with work — photographing wedding ceremonies and taking any other jobs he could find. His primary goal was to earn money to support his family and save for his dream of studying photography. At the time, even the local cinema offered little inspiration.

“I never had a director or a photographer who inspired me,” he said. “It never occurred to me to say, ‘I want to make films like this person.’ In Kosovo, we didn’t have such idols. We didn’t have a [Ingmar] Bergman like Sweden, a [Robert] Bresson like France or an [Abbas] Kiarostami like Iran. There was no one to look up to as a model.”

Tired of the uninspiring context, where daily routines revolved around wedding photos and passport portraits, he yearned for something more meaningful — a way to explore photography as an art form and a way of approaching film.

In 1996, this pursuit led him to Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts in Istanbul, where he began studying photography.

Istanbul in the 1990s, with its vibrant chaos and cultural diversity, offered Karahoda experiences he couldn’t find in Kosovo, especially as his country inched closer to war each day.

The decision to study in Istanbul was practical. He spoke Turkish — a legacy of growing up in Prizren — and Istanbul was more affordable and accessible than many Western European cities. For Karahoda, Istanbul filled many gaps, offering more than just an academic experience.

“I also attended the school of life,” he said, about Istanbul.

After several years in Istanbul, he returned to Prizren in 2003 and joined Dokufest, the international documentary and short film festival. At the time, Dokufest was just beginning its journey to becoming one of Kosovo’s leading film festivals and one of the most respected in Europe. Thus, he started his involvement in the world of film.

In 2003, he worked as a photographer on director Isa Qosja’s film “Kukumi,” an experience that, along with his involvement in Dokufest, further fueled his curiosity about film. He began contributing to smaller projects as a cameraman and cinematographer, working on documentaries and short films for other directors.

During this time, however, Karahoda gradually began to step away from the assisting roles to focus on making his own films. What drew him wasn’t merely creative ambition; he couldn’t ignore how, in his view, the film community in Kosovo often favored international crews over local talent and workers

“I realized there weren’t many people who believed I could make films. They usually only invited me when they didn’t have a budget. And when they did have a budget, they invited foreigners instead,” he said. “So, I decided to start making films myself — at least to make my own films,” he said. “I think it was a good decision.”

The grayness, as disappointment and revolt

Karahoda’s films are deeply personal, often drawing inspiration from his own life and the intricate tapestry of the world around him. The characters in his films are typically people he knows well — individuals who often play themselves, bringing their own life experiences to the screen. This distinctive approach gives Karahoda’s work a docu-fiction format, blending elements of fiction and documentary. This format is especially evident in his first two films, “In Between” and “Displaced.”

In “Displaced,” for example, the characters are not portrayed by professional actors but by the very people the film is about — professional table tennis players. This approach makes “Displaced” both a fiction film and a documentary.

Furthermore, Karahoda’s 2019 debut film “In Between,” originated as an extension of a photography project that he had worked on during his studies. The project focused on identical houses, mostly of brothers — since in Kosovo, property is primarily divided among sons — symmetrically designed and typically built by the father as a symbol of equal division of property and the preservation of harmony within the family.

Karahoda drew inspiration from conversations about property disputes within families he knew — a universal yet distinctly Kosovar story that reveals how home and property can fracture even the closest relationships. This concept of visual symmetry in the film’s setting has become a distinctive element of Karahoda’s work.

“Symmetry has become an identity in my way of telling stories, and I’m glad I found it as a form. I think it enhances the absurdity and irony,” he said.

With his debut film, Karahoda quickly broke onto the international scene, competing in the Berlinale Shorts category at the 2019 Berlin International Film Festival. However, it was “Displaced,” his second film, that propelled both his success and that of Kosovar cinema in general.

“Displaced” depicts the determination of professional table tennis players in Prizren who, for 15 years, were forced to move their table hundreds of times to different locations just to train. This resulted from not having a designated space to develop their skills. 

Karahoda’s films break away from traditional narrative structures; they do not have a conventional introduction, climax, or defined conclusion. Instead, the story unfolds gradually through visual catharsis and carefully chosen words that convey the weight of social commentary. Dialogue is sparse, but when it appears, it strikes directly at the heart of broader themes, shedding light on the country’s everyday social struggles.

The opening scene of “On the Way” exemplifies this approach. As the father picks up his son from soccer practice before heading to the airport, a fellow citizen — a wedding photographer — tells him, “Give up on movies, for God’s sake! You can’t earn anything from this job; the money is elsewhere.”

For Karahoda, this comment is too familiar. He often heard it, particularly from those who made a good living shooting weddings and occasionally invited him to work for them. To him, this man’s remark perfectly encapsulates the underestimation of art and those who pursue it seriously.

The script, which includes encounters like the one with the wedding photographer, serves only as a guide. Additional meetings, dialogue and scenes will inevitably be added as the film evolves.

“In a place like this, so many things happen before the film is finished,” said Karahoda.

Even during “On the Way,” many things happened, and the film evolved throughout the making process. The encounter with customs was not in the original script, but when it happened to him personally, Karahoda incorporated it into the film. Other scenes gained deeper meaning over time.

In one striking scene, the flags of Kosovo and the United States wave in the background while the car radio broadcasts news about the intensification of hybrid attacks by Serbia and Russia. Since Karahoda made the film, reports of hybrid attacks have become even more frequent.

After hearing the news in the film, Miron asks his father:

“Is there going to be another war?”

“Don’t worry, my son, because in just a few more days, there won’t be anyone left here to fight,” the father replies.

“But if there’s no one to fight, can they still conquer us?” Miron continues.

“There won’t be anyone left, because they are leaving too,” the father responds.

For Karahoda, the rhetoric of war, combined with what he calls the “autocratic elements” of regional leaders, is driving young people toward migration — a desire his son had also expressed to him.

Karahoda captures this silent despair of everyday life most effectively in his films, where pale and gray tones dominate the imagery, creating frames steeped in the monotony of a cold reality. The deliberate silences of his characters act as a mirror reflecting the quiet degradation of dignity that he perceives in the surrounding environment.

“Gray, as a feeling of how I see our country. Gray [reflects] that anger, the darkening of the world, the loss of hope for the future,” he said.

As a counterbalance to this despair, Karahoda has made it his mission to create films that are entirely Kosovar — produced by local crews and presented internationally as exclusively Kosovar productions. He has declined funding from foreign productions, even when it means facing financial challenges, relying instead on the budget of the Kosovo Cinematography Center (KCC) and his own resources. Co-productions often come with conditions: mixed crews and compromises on artistic sovereignty.

“If I were to accept co-financing from abroad, the film would no longer be fully Kosovar. It’s unfortunate to say, but we are more respected abroad,” he said. “My goal is not to make films just for myself.”

This disregard, he said, is something he encounters everywhere. It’s not just in how filmmakers overlook local talent, but also in how politicians treat artists, how bureaucrats treat citizens and how corruption seeps into every corner, destroying everything in its path.

“It’s a corrupt system that corrupts people,” he said. “You no longer feel like a resident of this country. You’re not a person. You’re just something to be exploited. Living here becomes a sacrifice when there’s a world of million opportunities out there.”

Karahoda and his team have proven that they can create anything from here, no matter how small, insignificant or unknown this place may seem. But then he turns on the TV or steps outside, reality unfolds before his eyes.

“I’m tired of the polluted air, the irresponsibility — that moment when you leave the house and breathe in the acid. Basic rights don’t exist — we didn’t have water for three days and there’s no structure anywhere. Bad things inspire me, but it would be better if they didn’t exist at all and I didn’t have to make films about them.”

Feature Image: Majlinda Hoxha / K2.0

Want to support our journalism? Become a member of HIVE or consider making a donation. Learn more here.