Figlia del temporale

We are in communist Albania in the Seventies. Hira grew up in Tirana and, after being orphaned, she is taken in by her uncle and his family. They live in the mountains in the northern part of the country in a small community of farmers where neither modernity nor communism
seem to have arrived. Hira slowly adapts to her new life made of chores outdoors, forbidden walks, and silent conversations with Astrit. Her cousin, in fact, hasn’t spoken for many years. He expresses himself through gestures, which is why everyone in the village considers him strange, a sort of wild animal. But Astrit and Hira find a secret language of their own to understand one another and, as they grow up, their relationship turns into something new and dangerous. Not just because they are cousins, but because a marriage is imposed on her by traditional Albanian codes. The only way to escape an arranged marriage is to become a burrnesh, a “sworn virgin”: she must give up her female identity and live like a man, taking on all the responsibilities it entails, but also all the freedoms reserved to men. And so, at the age of twenty, Hira becomes Mael: she dresses like a man, works like a man, and, like every burrnesh,
she is forbidden from having any romantic relationship. But her feelings and Astrit’s don’t change.