Example of widespread concrete military bunkers in Albania.
Kolonel Bunker is a 1996 Albanian historical film directed and written by Kujtim Çashku. Starring Agim Qirjaqi and Anna Nehrebecka, the film covers Enver Hoxha's mass construction of bunkers in Albania. French and Polish companies produced the film alongside Albania's Orafilm.
Plot
Enver Hoxha ruled Albania with an iron fist for nearly 40 years, and for a long time Albania was the only Hoxhaism regime and by far the most isolationist society in Europe—politically, psychologically and physically. This film is about Colonel Muro Neto, a character based on the historical engineer Josif Zagali, the man Hoxha charged with constructing the bunkers throughout the country which ostensibly protected Albania from its enemies both without and within. He became known as "Kolonel Bunker."
Directed and written by Kujtim Çashku, Kolonel Bunker was produced by Albania's Orafilm, France's A 3B Productions, and Poland's Film Studio Dom. Kahena Attia-Riveill edited the film and Andrzej Krause composed the music. Josif Zagali, who Muro Neto is based off, consulted for the film. Filming was done in Tirana.
Philip Kemp, writing for Variety, praised the film's "grimly humorous impact" and that technical problems and "self-consciously poetic interludes" did not weaken it.
