ADRIAN PACI ::::

PilgrIMAGE follows the story of the painting The Virgin Mary of Shkodra, which in the 15th century mysteriously disappeared from Shkoder (then called Shkodra), only to resurface in an Italian church near Rome. Although the painting has remained in Italy, Albanians still hope for its return to Shkoder in the future. In his video, Paci envisions such a return by projecting the image of the painting, still in an Italian church, on a large screen in Shkoder. The image of the icon itself thus makes a sort of pilgrimage back to its motherland. Paci slowly zooms in on the contrasting individual faces of Albanians who have congregated to watch the unmoving image of the Virgin Mary, and he slowly zooms out to show panning shots of the entire crowd. These shots are measured and dragging, but the film provides an ingenious glimpse of the faces of Albanians and one of their cultural legends.

Paci was born in Albania and lives and works in Italy. He belongs to a group of modern Albanian artists from the 1990s who portrayed the country’s radical social and political strife at the time, focusing on Albania’s people as they lived through the collapse of communism and civil war, and later chaos and anarchy. Many of his films are highly personal, involving his friends and family members, taking place in his native Albanian birthplace. Rather than providing the viewer with a nostalgic glance at the life that was left behind, Paci presents people that are trying to come to terms with how things are now.