In Dammi i Colori (’Give Me the Colors’), Anri Sala returns to his hometown, Tirana, in Albania, driving through the city with Edi Rama, the current mayor. In his films Sala sensitively and piercingly presents the political, social and cultural changes that have occurred in Eastern Europe. By combining personal experience with fragments of collective memory, and the conspicuous use of cinematic techniques, Sala’s stories introduce the diverse problems resulting from the ongoing changes experienced by his homeland, Albania.
In 2002 artist Edi Rama was elected mayor of Tirana, Sala’s hometown. As an anti-Communist activist, he initiated an extensive campaign in his jurisdictionintended to rehabilitate the city. Constant, inevitable budgetary problems ade the rehabilitation of the city which was destroyed during the Balkan wars and in the transition from communism to democracy difficult. This situation led Rama to develop creative ideas that would enable him to rehabilitate the torn city, improve its appearance, and unite its community.
The film documents a ride through the city at night during which Rama tells about his role as mayor, comparing the encounter with his constituency to an artist’s encounter with his audience. Rama unfolds a doctrine that sounds as if it were extracted from theories pertaining to color and form developed during Modernism. The nocturnal ride takes place while a large spotlight located on the car’s roof illuminates the façades painted with geometrical patterns in vivid, phosphorescent colors. The color codes are explained to the camera, making for a new reading of the buildings. The refined visual sights, the results of the cinematographic gaze with hints of lyricism, sketch a poetic image that reflects a restrained hope for this forgotten European locus.
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