The Goddess on the Throne
The voice of historian Aleks Buda echoes into the present – words, met by darkness, the absence of things. How to confront history when there are no objects to which this history adheres? How to revisit a history marked by gaps?
Hyjnesha në Fron traces this endlessly expanding echo in the present void - a haunting sound of rhythmical distortion, stretching over excavated images. A search but also a starting point: For demanding historical spaces filled with objects and people whose sudden reoccurring make the entanglement of absence and violence hauntingly concrete.
-
Durim KlaiqiDirectorreMemBer2.human
-
Durim KlaiqiWriter
-
Durim KlaiqiProducer
-
Fine SirMusic
-
Ahmet GrajqevciMissing Persons Consultant
-
Gjejlane HoxhaCultural Heritage Consultant
-
Melissa LindgrenMentor
-
Ard KelmendiSoftware Engineer (2DGS)Code of illusion
-
Jake BuckleySoftware Support
-
Rinor RamadaniDrone Operator
-
Agonis GorçajCamera Assistant
-
Project Title (Original Language):Hyjnesha në Fron
-
Project Type:Animation, Documentary, Experimental, Short, Other
-
Genres:History, Politics, Social Issues
-
Runtime:7 minutes 54 seconds
-
Completion Date:March 31, 2025
-
Production Budget:3,384 EUR
-
Country of Origin:Albania, Kosovo
-
Country of Filming:Albania, Kosovo
-
Language:Albanian
-
Shooting Format:unknown/various
-
Aspect Ratio:16:9 & flat
-
Film Color:Black & White and Color
-
First-time Filmmaker:No
-
Student Project:No
-
Digital Cinema Package:Unavailable
-
DokuFestPrizren
Kosovo
August 4, 2025
World Premiere
Official Selection - National Competition -
Tirana International Film FestivalTirana
Albania
September 26, 2025
International Premire
Official Selection: In ALBANIAn Competition -
Luksuz Film FestivalKrško
Slovenia
January 24, 2026
Slovenian Premiere
Official Selection -
Filmfest Schleswig-HolsteinKiel
Germany
March 20, 2026
Germany Premiere
BLICKFANG - Official Selection
Distribution Information
-
None
Durim Klaiqi is a self-taught experimental filmmaker and graphic designer from Prishtina. He began his creative path in 2017 through Samsung’s Galaxy Themes partnership and later graduated in Integrated Design with a focus on graphic design. In 2020, he expanded into video editing, combining visual communication with moving images.
His debut short film, reMemBer2.human, an experimental sci-fi film with a €0 budget, was screened at festivals such as Vienna Shorts, DokuFest and TIFF, winning acclaim and awards. He then created the experimental documentary “The Goddess on the Throne”, which also premiered at DokuFest and TIFF.
He also created the experimental documentary PART OF THE SYSTEM, which is awaiting its world premiere, and is currently developing a new project, Crow Funeral.
In addition to filmmaking, he has participated in and given guest lectures in workshops and masterclasses, where new technologies such as 3D reconstruction and machine learning are central themes, further expanding his research into experimental narratives, memory, technology and hybrid visual forms.
Sometime in 2020, I happened to come across an article about an exhibition organized by the National Museum of Kosovo and the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports. This exhibition was dedicated to artifacts taken from the public collection of Kosovo museums during 1998-1999, which still remain unreturned by the Serbian state. Thanks to international pressure, only “The Goddess on the Throne" was returned in 2002 due to its importance as a symbol of the city of Prishtina.
When I read this article, I had a feeling that even today I find difficult to describe but it has stayed with me throughout these years. This documentary is the embodiment of that feeling.
This experimental project is a product of months-long independent research, conducted both in local and international archives. Like an archaeologist who digs and analyzes material remnants to derive meaning from these findings, similarly I investigated journalistic reportings on various events in Kosovo.
What I am most proud of is the use of the new technology “3D Gaussian Splatting” (3DGS), which has been applied in a way never seen before - photogrammetry use (3D reconstruction) for archival videos. When we think about revisiting the past in the context of film, we are often very limited by the formats through which we can do this (especially with small budgets), so the ability to reconstruct spaces of the past in a three-dimensional digital form creates an indescribable experience for the viewer.