Actor and Character | Save Zani and Coli!

Rescue Zani and Coli | Exclusively for the site! Taken from the pages of the "Shekulli" newspaper in 2000, when Shpetim Zani was 53 years old! For all generations it is remembered as "Coli". Shpetim Zani became a grandfather at the age of 40. His hair has fallen, but the twinkle in his eyes has remained that of the 13-year-old, the age at which Salvation, for better or for worse, would no longer be called by the acquaintances by the name that had given him parents, but "Coli", with the name of the character who played in the movie "Debatik". It was the fall of 1960, when director Hysen Hakan asked one of the capital's teachers, Agim Nallban, to choose three boys from the children's theater of the Palace of Pioneers for the filming of the film "Debat". "They chose me, Agim Brahon and Sabaudin Hasan for the screening", Shpetim Zani begins the narration of his rare story. But many other children would also compete for the audition, even Koço Devole, but only one would enter the path of cinematography as the future Coli. Fate was said and predetermined. God and nature had entrusted this role to the eldest son of a poor family of five children, whose parents had nothing to do with art. "My father worked as a bartender, while my mother was a housewife", says Shpetimi. Precisely his origin, that of a poor boy, would help him to create the character, to give Col that resourceful, brave and resourceful nature. "I didn't fit in Kinostudio, but I didn't rehearse more than twice. There were times when I left rehearsals halfway through and ran away from the shooting altogether", he says about his first and last film experience. While Koço Devole tried the doubles with Besim Levonjën, Shpetimi was assigned to try alongside Lazër Filipi. One of these pairs would be the one that would be chosen for the film. "At the end of the rehearsals, they chose Besim Levonjë to play "uncle Lymi" and me for the role of Col." He remembers that during the rehearsals, the director Hyseni was very angry by nature, he even cursed and insulted. Roland Trebicka even cried once when Hakan insulted him. The family environment of the stage workers, carpenters, electricians, etc., "Coli" sedŒrli and with character would create around him the warmth that he had always had at home. Taqo Pecani, who played the role of Agimi, would admire him, while Ben Kurtikos, who played the role of Agron, i.e. the spy, the 13-year-old Shpetim would stay away from him, because with his childish fantasy he would take him as if he were all spy mind. The director of the film, Todi Bozo, the deputy director Shyqyri Behri, the cameraman Viktor Gjika, together with Dhimitőr Anagnosti, would keep close the beautiful 13-year-old who did not leave two stones together. "Once or twice as soon as I finished filming, I ran to Ura e Brari to bathe in the river. There were times when they brought me there, by the river, to take me for rehearsals. Even when I wasn't about to play, like once in Lezhë, they took me with them, because they thought that something bad might happen to me, like the harrakat that I was, and I left them in the middle of filming", – remembers Coli, now 53- year old. Although the parts in the film were difficult, considering Shpetim's 13-year-old age and especially his lack of experience, he played with great pleasure. He would also ride an army horse without any difficulty, even though he had never ridden a horse before. When Coli was killed, he remembers that Hysen Hakan got under the camera and howled: "You donkey, I told you to shoot them with fake bullets. You killed our son!" This cry had its effect. All the episodic actors who filled the massive stage began to cry with real tears, because they remembered that Salvation was really dead. "The scene turned out to be completely real with people crying for me", he continued, not forgetting that for 40 years in a row it would be exactly him who had played Colin, who would cry every time he saw it. the scene of the murder. "I don't know, but every time I see Colin killed on TV, I cry uncontrollably," says Shpetim Zani. After this film, unfortunately for him, for several years in a row, no more films for children would be shot. "Then it was time to become a soldier and more and more I felt that I was being separated from the world of film." As a turner by profession, from time to time he would engage in amateur variety shows, a couple of times even in very episodic roles in films. But the beautiful and sweet face of Col, which he had created himself, would always follow him like a loving and soothing shadow from behind. "In the neighborhood, they only call me by the name of the movie", Shpetimi recalls with pride, while he can't help but express the pledge he has kept in his heart for years. "If the filmmakers would remember me, they wouldn't hurt," he sighs. But sometimes it happens like in fairy tales. Salvation Zani played only one role and his Coli became immortal. "15 years ago, when I met Anagnostin by chance on the bus, he told me that the film "Debatik" had received the Palme d'Or at the European Retrospective Film Festival in Italy. The other Albanian film "Lulëkuqet mbi mure" received the first prize, while "Beni ecçon veto" won the second one. "There was no greater pleasure for me, even though I was not invited to take part in the celebration," says Shpetimi. The organizers liked the play of little Col so much that they asked why the actor was not there. The rescue shows another "interested" in meeting Colin. When the great Albanian actor with world fame Bekim Fehmiu came to Albania, he wanted to meet the little actor, but he couldn't. "Perhaps those at Kinostudio were fed up by the fact that at that time I was selling vegetables at Pazari i Ri and I was finally fired," Shpetimi remembers with pain. But regardless, he had Colin. This unusual character has been enough to face the moments of forgetfulness and those of silence. Coli has challenged them both once and for all. "Many of the children still call me Coli, and that makes me immensely happy," Shpetim consoles himself, as he remembers his short career that started so well. At the film festival in Italy, the critics expressed that the film "Debatik" in its successful role will live for another hundred years." The child actor, who could not become such, now lives together with his wife, Bukurien, in an apartment with one room and a kitchen in the penultimate station of Kinostudio. Eh, although life was not so generous with him as to allow him to pursue his life's dream to the end, but he only let it touch him, he is not the one who suffers for it. He lived a life like any other person, with its good and bad, but above all, he left something, he left a figure that everyone knows. People know him, remember him and this is enough for him to take him out of the ranks of the anonymous. "It is a pleasure that even after 40 years they come and remember me," says Coli. Cole in himself is not a character as it is usually done in most films, but a real child, a debater killed during the war. Here is the real Coli It was an afternoon in September 1943, when a German guard, (and not an Italian one, as shown in the film), kills in cold blood in front of today's National Theater Aleko Qiricin, a 13-year-old child. The clock marked 2:30 minutes, when a gunshot was heard in the main square of Tirana. Selman Vaqarri, 14 years old, and Aleko, a year younger than him, were distributing tracts. "Aleko had seen the German soldier and tried to climb over the fence of a hillside garden, but the German shot him with a pistol from behind, leaving him dead on the spot", recalls Selmani, one of Col's friends, after 57 years. really. The German soldier stood in front of the child's corpse as if nothing had happened. "At that moment, I was climbing tracts in the area where the National Museum is located today. "I heard the cry and the thunder straight to the place of the murder", Vaqarri recalls. "His body was still warm and it seemed to me that he was alive. With great effort I took him in my arms, until I found a coachman, with whom I took him to the hospital", continues his true story Vaqarri. But Aleko, the 13-year-old child was dead. It was this real motive taken from life that would torment Selman Vaqarri throughout his life. At first he wrote a story, then a novel, and then the then director of Kinostudio Llazar Lipivani would suggest him to make a film script. "This is how the figure of this martyr whose name and grave no one knew would be perpetuated", says Selmani. This was just one of the lived episodes of the life of a group of children from the capital, who would then create the group "Debatik". Mr. Vaqarri, screenwriter of the film and author of the novel with the same title, published ten times in a row in Albania and Kosovo, says that this group was originally called "Besa". "We had done several actions such as tearing down the fascist flag on May 15, 1939, burning the fascist barracks "Shkumbini", blowing up fascist cars, etc.", he continues the story experienced in the film. "On one of these hot days, when we, 12 children of Tirana, were wanted both by the fascists and by the communists (who still didn't know who we were), a little boy one year younger than me comes to me. and asks to join the group', remembers Vaqarri. "At first I didn't want to, because I thought he was physically weak and I didn't know him well. The real Col, Aleko Qirici, came from the villages of Kolonje. The Greek invaders had taken them from their lands and 13-year-old Aleko, together with his mother, had come to Tirana. Not much time passed and Aleko's uncle was arrested, while his mother died of a serious illness. Aleko remained an orphan and lonely. When I saw his determination, I gave him a bunch of tracts and soon Alekoja became the most active member of the group. He also supplied 50 other boys with them", Selmani confesses. "In the hospital, I swore that we would get rid of him," Selman Vaqarri concludes his story. After many years, he would meet a woman on the street who introduced him to a 23-year-old boy. "This is the Aleko Qirici of our days", she told him. The woman was Alek's sister from before, while the boy was her son, whom she named after her brother killed in the war. ___________________________ It was published exclusively for the page on December 14, 2021 Reference: "Shekulli" newspaper – 2000 Albanian cinematography in activity since 2013

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