Chromium (film)

Chromium (Albanian: Krom) is a 2015 Albanian drama film directed by Bujar Alimani. Frefjon Ruci stars as a child who is illegally employed at a chromium mine. Produced by companies from Albania, Germany, Greece, and Kosovo, the film was Albania's nominee for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film at the 89th Academy Awards, but it was not one of the finalists.

Chromium
Film poster
Directed by	Bujar Alimani [sq]
Written by	Bujar Alimani
Starring	Frefjon Ruci
Cinematography	Ilias Adamis
Edited by	Bonita Papastathi
Music by	Pjeter Gaci
Production companies	90 Production Gegnia Film Elsani Film Fantasia
Release dates	8 July 2015 (2015-07-08) (KVIFF) 15 October 2015 (2015-10-15) (Albania)
Running time	78 minutes
Country	Albania
Language	Albanian

Plot

15 year old Adi lives at the edge of town with his younger brother and deaf-mute mother. He becomes illegally employed at a chromium mine. The only person that Adi trusts is a young math teacher, who empathizes with Adi due to both of them being rebellious.

Cast

• Frefjon Ruci as Adi
• Klodjana Keco as Mother
• Mirela Naska as Kujtim
• Kasem Hoxha as Math teacher
• Denis Shira as Denis
• Bledar Naska as Teacher
• Erjona Kaja as Bardha
• Suela Bako as Woman in mine
• Xhevdet Doda as Engineer
• Albulena Kryeziu as Sokol's mother
• Elton Deda as Singer at RockStock

Production

Companies from Albania, Germany, Greece, and Kosovo produced Chromium.^[1] Bujar Alimani [sq] wrote and directed the film^[2] and stated that the main characters were inspiared by two brothers he knew as a child.^[3] Bonita Papastathi edited the film, Pjeter Gaci composed the music,^[2] and the cinematography was done by Ilias Adamis.^[4] Financial support was provided by the National Film Center of Serbia, Kosovo Film Centre,^[1] and National Center of Cinematography.^[5]

Release

Chromium premiered at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival on 8 July 2015.^[2][3] Albania selected the film as its nominee for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film at the 89th Academy Awards, but it was not one of the finalists.^[6] Another one of Alimani's films, Amnesty, was Albania's submission in 2011.^[7]

Reception

Clarence Tsui, writing for The Hollywood Reporter, praised Kuci's performance and how "delicate and restrained" the script was in regards to exposition and character relationships.^[4]

See also

• List of Albanian submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film