समाचार

Dreaming of the sea takes on weightier significance when the dreamer lives in a landlocked country. It’s not just an idle fantasy of beach holidays and salt-rimmed cocktails — though Vera (Teuta Ajdini Jegeni) would like that too — but as Kaltrina Krasniqi’s taut, sorrowful narrative feature debut “Vera Dreams of the Sea” proves, the vision of a vast blue expanse stretching out to a far horizon can also become tacitly political for a widow who suddenly feels the weight of Kosovan patriarchy bearing down on her already burdened shoulders.

Under the high-tension whines and see-sawing violins of Petrit Çeku and Genc Salihu’s sinister, interior-monologue score, we’re introduced to Vera, a middle-aged interpreter for the deaf. As frankly and fearlessly embodied by a terrific Jegeni, Vera is onscreen almost every moment, which is already a coup given that few are the films that take a woman of this...