Gilles Roudiere

What are these mountains dreaming about ? Albania is terrific and fascinating. The country of mountains exhales something mysterious, a kind of bewitching soul that cannot fail to haunt you. The beating streams of a Mediterranean sunlight, the meeting with unlikely landscapes, the smoke from burning wild rubbish dumps rising up into the air, the whirls of dust in towns and the sandstorms along the coasts lend the land a specific atmosphere and a strong personality. What mattered to me was the desire to capture my own intimate experiences of the country, my inner-feelings, steering clear of Roland Barthes’ qualified “studium”. More than any classical documentary issue it is Albania as a photographic theatre with its inhabitants performing in their daily scenery that my images intend to reveal.