An inspiring real-life struggle against patriarchy

Hive is screened in the World Cinema category at the 26th IFFK

A woman driving a car or running a home-based business can be just another regular activity or a revolutionary act depending on where they are living. In the Kosovan-Albanian film Hive, screened in the World Cinema category at the 26th International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK), it is a decision that has serious repercussions in the life of Fahrije Hoti, a real-life character, whose husband had gone missing after the Serbian attack on a Kosovan village in 1999.

In normal circumstances, it would seem that a woman who has witnessed a violent war and lost her family members, would get the support of the society around her. But for the men in the small, remote village that Fahrije lives, misogyny is a feeling that can trump most other emotions, including empathy towards her. Though she and the other widowed women in the village get meagre financial aid through a women's organisation, it is not enough to take care of their families.

Fahrije decides to run a business selling homemade Ajvar, a Yugoslavian dish made of bell peppers and eggplants, and honey. She learns driving to deliver the products herself. It might sound like a normal story of any neighbourhood women group running small businesses. But, the men in the Kosovan village do not take kindly to these personal decisions, which they see as a challenge to their patriarchal power. They rain down stones on her car, try to destroy her products, and create all possible obstructions on her path.

The fact that she is a war victim trying to make a living does not come under their consideration. In between running her business and overcoming challenges, she is a regular at protests demanding justice for the widows and those waiting for their husbands. She also takes trips to identify the bodies that have been recovered, not finding her husband in any. The pressure from the society around them bears down on her family too, with her kids as well as her father-in-law questioning her choices. But, the strong-willed Fahrije fights back and makes the family as well as the women around her see things her way.

Director Blerta Basholli has a firm grip on the narrative as well as the social setting, which is familiar to her, having fled from a conflict-ridden Kosovo as a teenager. The things that the real-life Fahrije fought for might be taken for granted for women in many other places, but the difference is mostly only in the things that they have to fight for. It can be about the choice of clothing, the right to walk the streets past dusk or the choice of life partner or profession. Fahrije's story conveys the fact that fighting back is the only option to overturn patriarchal norms. Hive, which won three major awards at the Sundance film festival, is Kosovo's official entry for the Oscar Awards this year.