Globalized Socialism, Nationalized Time: Soviet Films, Albanian Subjects, and Chinese Audiences across the Sino-Soviet Split
Journal: Slavic Review
Year: 2018

In the 1950s, films like Sergei Yutkevich's Velikii voin Albanii Skanderbeg symbolized Albanian-Soviet friendship, which was said to be undying. The Soviets brought their reels and their famous actors to this corner of the Mediterranean, and they also designed the country's first film agency, baptized “New Albania.” By the early 1960s, however, the friendship was dead. Albania's communist regime sided with Mao's China during the dramatic Sino-Soviet schism. From instruments of friendship, films