Balkan film and food festival opens

POGRADEC, Sep 18 (TemA) — The 15th Balkan Film & Food Festival opened in Pogradec, pairing cinema and cuisine from across the region through Sep 20.

Screenings are free at the Lasgush Poradeci Cultural Center. This morning’s program showcased new voices with titles including Slovenia’s “The Phantoms of the Mind,” Kosovo’s “OGRE,” North Macedonia’s “Amra,” Greece’s “Make Love Not Porn,” and Turkey’s “Mimas.” Tonight’s slate features the documentaries “Bekim Fehmiu” and “Lulëkuqe mbi mure.”

More than 50 films — shorts, documentaries, animations and features — will be shown from Albania, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Greece and Romania. Daytime screenings run at Pogradec’s cinema; evening shows move to the Multifunctional Center, steps from Lake Ohrid.

The festival, created by Eno Milkani, Fatos Baxhaku and Gerta Qurku, blends film with a culinary program designed to spotlight Balkan traditions.