Hunting Flies is a political metaphor about the rise and fall of dictatorship set in a classroom over the course of one intense day. Ghani, an idealistic teacher, loses his job on the first day of school. Making one last attempt to get it back, he locks his students inside the classroom, forcing them to resolve a generation-long conflict between their villages.

National Jury's motivation: Hunting Flies is an unusually well-made low-budget film that makes deft and impeccable use of its limited resources. The characters – a teacher and his pupils – are established subtly and organically, so that the viewer feels like a witness to authentic dialogue and confrontations. Set in a Macedonian village classroom, Izer Aliu’s story sensitively explores how dictatorships rise and fall, in a way that is politically and psychologically relevant on multiple levels.

National Jury members: Inger Merete Hobbelstad, Kalle Løchen, Britt Sørensen

For full press release, production notes and high res photos of director, producer and poster see Press kit. The information is available in the Nordic languages and English.