From the moment that Gjorg's brother is killed by a neighbour, his own life is forfeit: for the Kanun, the code of the blood feud that operates in the Albanian mountains, requires Gjorg to kill his brother's murderer and then in turn to become an outcast to be hunted down by the new victim's family.

Two Irish-American scholars from Harvard journey to Albania in the 1930s with a tape recorder in order to record the last genuinely oral epic singers. Their purpose, they say, is to show how Homer's epics might have been culled from a verbal tradition. The two dedicated scholars realise only too late that they have stumbled over an ants' nest.

An Italian general, sent by his government to Albania to repatriate the remains of Italian troops, meets a German general engaged on an identical mission, and their conversations bring into the open their horror and guilt

In the tradition of George Orwell's 1984, Albania's leading writer creates a disturbing vision of unrestraned totalitarianism and the impact it has on those who exist under its shadow.

When the construction of a bridge built to link the Balkans to Europe is mysteriously sabotaged, an old ballad starts making the rounds at local taverns. The bards sing of a legend - a woman immured in a castle wall to prevent it from falling. Some say the bridge is being damaged by local ferrymen, others blame vengeful water spirits.

It's the 1970s and cracks are starting to appear in the alliance between China and its Communist cohort Albania. When an Albanian steps on the foot of a Chinese diplomat the tension cranks up - couriers between Tirana and Beijing carry annotated x-rays of the foot back and forth.

When the new Egyptian Pharaoh decrees that he does not want a pyramid built in his honour his advisers are aghast. It is their firm belief that peace and prosperity only make the people more difficult to control - they must be kept under the whip.

In September 1943, Nazi troops advance on the ancient gates of Gjirokaster, Albania. The very next day, the Germans vanish without a trace. As the townsfolk wonder if they might have dreamt the events of the previous night, rumours circulate of a childhood friendship between a local dignitary and the invading Nazi Colonel.

Set against the tumultuous backdrop and aftermath of the war in the Balkans, 'The Accident' intimately documents an affair between two people caught in each other's webs. The investigation into their deaths uncovers a mutually destructive obsession that mirrors the conflicts of the region.

An old woman is awoken in the dead of night by knocks at her front door. The woman opens it to find her daughter, Doruntine, standing there alone in the darkness. She has been brought home from a distant land by a mysterious rider she claims is her brother Konstandin. But unbeknownst to her, Konstandin has been dead for years. What follows is chain of events which plunges a medieval village into fear and mistrust. Who is the ghost rider?