three sparks

Intrigued by British anthropologist Edith Durham’s writing about life in the Albanian highlands in the early 1900s, Naomi Uman packed her cameras and her dog to relocate there. Continuing her study of rural agricultural communities, traditions, and histories, Uman’s three sparks is a cinematic triptych of village life. It was shot by Uman on 16mm film and digital video, and sometimes by the villagers, with whom she shared her camera. A self-described “vulnerable observer,” she shows beauty and freedom without diminishing the constraints of hard work and tradition. “A humble gesture of revolt, collapsing dissimilar voices, experiences, and aesthetics into a quicksilver vision of collective being” (Nicolas Pedrero-Setzer, Screen Slate).