ABOUT THE PROJECT

LOGLINE
A Kosovar woman is sent to witch doctors to cure her infertility, but when she becomes pregnant, her wartime past comes back to torment her.

SYNOPSIS
In 1999, teenagers Antoneta and Sevdije Kastrati barely escaped the horrific village massacres in the Kosovo War that claimed both their mother and older sister. Years later, they are both graduates of the American Film Institute, in pre-production for their first feature film collaboration, a dark psychological drama entitled ZANA.

ZANA is the story of Lume, an Albanian woman who lives with her husband, Ilir, and her mother-in-law, Remzije, in a Kosovo village. She has lost her only child a decade earlier in the war and is now haunted by night terrors and unable to get pregnant. Desperate for a child, the family abandons modern medicine and seeks a traditional healer who can cure her.

Lume’s visit to a local witch doctor only worsens her situation, as a prescribed animal sacrifice deepens old traumas. The family then goes into debt to send Lume to Kosovo’s most famous healer. He performs an elaborate ritual and cautions them that the suspicious witch doctor may have cursed Lume with black magic.

Soon Lume is pregnant, hopeful that she will again be a mother. But as the pregnancy progresses, Lume’s tormented past and a dark secret come back to haunt her and her unborn baby.

PROJECT TYPE Narrative Feature

DIRECTOR Antoneta Kastrati
PRODUCER Casey Cooper Johnson

WEBSITE zanamovie.com