Production Note

1. L I O N S H E A D I N G
V E N I C E
P R O D U C E R N O T E
BY
E L K J A N A G J I P A L I

2. F R E E D O M I S N O T H I N G
B U T A C H A N C E T O B E
B E T T E R
P R O D U C E R
S T A T E M E N T
When I heard the title for the first
time, I was intrigued and wanted to
know more about the script. I
thought at first it is about the film
festival in Venice and their price the
golden lion, but when I read the
script, it was so much more than
that. This two lions Vani and Kaci
were not in search of fame in this
prestigious festival, in fact they were
in search of freedom and they really
did not make it to the festival. Living
their young years during communism
they recognize that they were free
for the first time in their life. Thanks
to the two actresses that introduced
them to another kind of freedom
that they could never experience in
their own country.
I as a female producer, appreciate
how Vani changes in the end and
lets his daughter to be free to pursue
her dreams. He could never have
accepted her choice if he wouldn’t
have taste freedom like he
discovered it in this journey.
I really believe that every country has
their own definition of freedom but
pure freedom is an equal
opportunity for life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness.
Thought provoking – a great story for
an audience from eighteen of age
onwards – uplifting funny and
moving.

3. P R O D U C E R N O T E
The Film was shot over 5 weeks in Albania
and Italy. Pre -production was officially 6
weeks before that, but work on the film
had actually started years earlier. The first
additional team on board was the art
director so that we could get a jump on
some of the more difficult art department
elements and locations. Since it is a road
movie there were no studio builds on the
shoot – it was an all location shoot.
We were lucky because we could use the
Albanian landscape, churches and the
seaside and it would totally look like we
were in Italy this saved us a lot of money
and we shot only 10 days in Italy.
The trickiest location was the shootings in
the seaside where we had to add fog and
the wind that day would work against us.
Another challenging day to shoot was
with the hot air balloon also that day the
wind was not helping at all, but thanks to
the great team work between the
director and the director of photography
we finished that day with some great
shoots that we could cover the scene.
Sound recording was difficult because
we were near the sea, also in Italy the
location was near a military area that
interfered in the recordings, other than
that everything else went fine. Dave
Tozer was a real professional and he
always find a solution during this
difficulties.
As we were shooting in September the
days where long so we could shoot
during all day long, except when we
had to do re-shoots and the light had
changed from the beginning of
September to the end of the month.
During the second week we had some
delays in the shootings and the cast
and crew had a few hours of sleep but
this did not affect their performance in
front of the camera.
F R E E D O M I S N O T H I N G
B U T A C H A N C E T O B E
B E T T E R

4. P R O D U C E R N O T E
The shoot was preceded by a rehearsal
period. Rehearsals took place in the
production offices. Jonid would bring
actors in one by one, then in two’s, as he
would start to work the scenes and the
characters in those scenes. Kastriot and
Vasjan already knew each other before
what needed time was to develop a
friendship between them and Alissa and
Natalia. By the third day of the
shootings the four of them became
good friends and they really helped
each other to get into character
The atmosphere on the set was jovial
when setting up, but once actors were
on set, the atmosphere changed to a
quiet, professional air. As many of the
scenes were complex, emotional and
demanding, everyone respected the
need to give the actors the safe platform
that they needed to give their best
performances. We generally used two
cameras on each scene and this enabled
Jonid the choice of two different angles
to work with in the editing suite. We
shot on Arri Aleksa 95% of the scenes,
but also carried a Sony A7SII camera for
some shots inside the car.
The first 2 weeks of the filming was in
locations primarily in Tirana, and then
we traveled to Italy for 10 days of
shootings. We had great co-operation
from the local council of San Giorgo
Ionico, community. The person that
made it all possible there was the
Albanian journalist Davide Ded Ndoi,
and we are grateful to his energy and
assistance during the shootings there.
“Lions heading Venice” was truly a work
of love. It was the director Jonid Jorgji
that never gave up during the 2 years
of developing the project attending
many pitching sessions and going
through script doctors to get into the
final draft of the script. It is difficult for
a first time director to get funded but
the National Film Center in Albania
believed in his passion to tell this story.
Everyone worked for far less than their
normal fees; we were able to get many
locations at cheap rates or for free. Two
of the most known actors in Albania,
Vasjan Lami and Kastriot Çaushi joined
the cast because the story appealed to
them on a personal level. The two
promising actresses from Italy, Alissa
Huzar and Natalia De Maria believed in
the director professional approach and
jump on the plane to join the other
cast. We had some difficult times
during the two years developing the
project, not everyone was welcoming a
first time director with a low budget
from Albania, but in the end we did it
with a great cast and crew that loved
every minute of the film.
There is a magic about this film – not
just because of the amazing cast
performance, not just because of the
great locations in Albania and not just
because of Jonid Jorgji’s talent– it’s all
that and more. We hope “Lions
Heading Venice” will stay with you
because in the end it is a story of
discovering the pure sense of freedom.

5. DIRECTOR: JONID JORGJI
WRITERS: JONID JORGJI
PRODUCERS: ELKJANA GJIPALI
ALBANIAN DISTRIBUTOR: EJF PRODUCTION
INTERNATIONAL SALES AGENT: N/A
RUNNING TIME: 110 MINUTES
FILMED ON: HD CAM
COUNTRY OF PRODUCTION: ALBANIA
COMPLETED SHOOTINGS: 2018
P R O D U C T I O N
D E T A I L S
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