EXCLUSIVELY AND ONLY IN “ALBANIAN CINEMATOGRAPHY”
July 31, 2022
Profile of the actress Violeta Deda – Pali (1953-2008), the inextinguishable star of the stage and the screen.
Prologue!
They are hot days at the end of July that will be remembered, not only because they set a record for the heat they contain, but more so because of the fact that finally, after many years of searching for information about the actress from Shkodra, Mrs. Violeta Deda who has already passed away, I managed to find communication with the closest people of her family!
It’s July 25 and I had a phone conversation with Mrs. Pasqualina Luka, one of the artist’s sisters.
I’m excited!!
In fact, right after, I have the honor and privilege to talk with Violeta’s brother, Mr. Valentin Deda. This makes me feel proud and motivates me for the initiative taken, in publishing information about a group of actresses who were left in the dust of oblivion.
Generations should recognize, honor and remember these figures with respect for their contribution to the performing arts, just as the whole world honors and respects their artists.
Pasqualina is exactly a lady, loving and friendly, ready to provide the right information without the slightest hesitation and, above all, polite in communication.
She immediately thanks me for the initiative and even invites me for a lunch “alla shkodrance”, here in New York where she has been living for years, just like we shkodrans know how to do that……
“Don’t forget, she tells me, that you also have a family here in America”!
I’m confused by the emotion and I can’t find the words right away, but I hope I thanked her for the invitation and consideration. Italians have an expression: “Una ciliegia tira l’latra”, this often happens with two people from the same city. I didn’t know before that the family of the artist, the unforgettable Violeta, was there very close, not only in a neighborhood but two buildings away in Shkoder. I knew that they all lived as a family in the beautiful city of Durres…….
There is nothing to be surprised because in fact, in all the cultural and artistic neighborhoods of Shkodra, you can hardly find any that haven’t been inhabited by big names in every field specially in arts and sports. That’s how I grew up and I was lucky to be in a neighborhood with the great actor Rikard Ljarja, Violeta Deda and I had in the same building the brother of the great singer Tonin Tershana, (I actually grew up together with the nephew of the great singer , now deceased, because we belong to another generation with Alban, having a difference of 10-15 years (approximately), when these artists were at their peak, we imitated them or played football, breaking our legs in a field with stones and pits behind the building where we lived …….)
Even here in Yonkers, New York state, I again live close to Violeta’s sister, the honorable lady Pasqualina!
So: “una ciliegia tira l’altra”.
During the conversation with this lady from Shkodra, I feel that she is touched and tells me that I made her cry with emotion when she saw the dedication to her sister on our page “Albanian Cinematography”.
She then tells me: “Violeta has been the angel of the house”. I apologized to Pasqualina if I unintentionally caused her pain, of course the untimely loss of her sister and in such circumstances negligence and carelessness, still hurts! On the contrary, says Pasqualina, I thank you immensely!
In fact, it is me and on behalf of the page who must thank this lady and her brother, the honorable Mr. Valentin Deda.
Two days later, I had an equally pleasant conversation with M. Valentin, who was ready, very friendly, polite and with a pure Shkodran dialect, he started and told me many things, exclusively for the “Albanian Cinematography” page.
Being from the same city of Shkodra, I also have the luck and privilege to listen to him with curiosity.
I
I started by asking Valentini family`s last name. We know that in Shkoder there are several well-known families with the surname “Deda”, while in the movies it is written Violeta Dede….
What is the exact surname of your family, I say, Deda or Dede?
Just a “slip”, he tells me. There is nothing in the relationship to avoid the famous “blemish in the biography”.
Lola has been left in oblivion, he continues.
I tell him that the media is to blame, the information that is completely devoted to politics.
Artists are heroes, they are national pride, Valentini tells me, especially that generation has been golden one in every genre of art. Regardless of the system, art flourished. Today, the artist is not valued, and even more so, the works and contributions of the past are being destroyed.
Valentini, being himself an artist, a painter, brings me an example, removing the bust of the 5 heroes, the excellent work of Shaban Haderi, burying it somewhere in the dust of the streets of Koplik. Once the people of Shkodra used to have a meeting point of that memorial “see you at 5 heroes”, they used to say, while today, says Valentini (even with a little humor like every Shkodran running in his veins), their place has been taken by some spikes / uphill pipes.
Today, I tell my friends when I return to Shkoder, “I’ll meet you at the stakes”! This is a simple example to understand what is done today in general with art, artists, works and their contribution to each gender.
I continued the conversation with Valentini by asking him:
Besides Violeta, was there anyone else from your family who was involved in art? In the archive of the “Migjeni” Theater, based also on the flyers, I have often come across a name, Zef Deda, as the performer of some of the first theatrical performances.
Yes, he was my father, one of the first actors of this theater, even at the top of the time, with the old staff before the establishment of the professional theater, before the construction of the building that is today the “Migjeni” theater. My father often took me with him since I was a child, where I watched those actors play.
He was active, although rarely, also with variety shows. In many theatrical performances, even though in small roles (for reasons of biography), his performance especially stands out in “7 Shaljans” in the role of a rhapsode. I remember well, Valentini continues, that when the stage curtain opened, he would sit on a bench in a corner of the stage and play the lute.
So, Violeta, who would become an unquenchable star of the Albanian stage and screen, comes from a family of artists. And it cannot be otherwise. Even the youngest brother of the 5 children of the Deda family wins the competition for an actor, but because of biographical issue, they don’t allow him, even Valentin himself is denied the right to study because he is a promising talent in painting…
Ah, that desolate biography!
It was time for a system that would scan deeper and deeper in the families of Albanians and definitely find a “crooked wood” and this, according to them, in this case was the uncle of my father`s Zef, named Ujk, and he was one of the 200 men of the Dugagjin uprising against the system that was being installed……..
This fact was mentioned many times as a reminder to her father, Zefi, but also to Violeta later to intimidate her.
II
Violeta was born in Shkoder on December 7, 1953. All her relatives, friends and colleagues would affectionately call her Lola.
At the “28-29 Nentori” Gymnasium in her hometown, she participated in various artistic activities. In fact, all the children of the Deda family will be actors, actresses and performers in the staffs of their workplaces with the amateur artistic movement of the city.
More or less a family of artists, but Violeta will be the one who managed to raise acting and performing arts in her family to a professional level. Even with all the obstacles, vicissitudes, blots in her biography, Violeta knew how to find the way to move forward towards art thanks to her iron will, perseverance, passion, skills and of course her constant work.
She tried very hard to “wash away” the stain in his biography and she succeeded because such a talent deserved to have the place of honor and its significant contribution to the performing arts.
In 1972, she competed and won the right to study at ILA, the High Institute of Arts, which she graduated in 1976 and after a year of internship, she graduated as an actress. 1977.
During his studies, of course, she was also active in several roles in theatrical performances, where she stands out in Cajupi’s comedy “After Death” in the role of Lulushe. While still a student in the field of acting, she became active in the films Operation “Fire” and another small role in the film “Explosion” (1974) as teacher Shpresa.
After graduating as an actress, she is expected to start working at the Theater of her hometown in Migjeni. Shkodra needed a new element and an educated actress. But the opposite happens!
Maybe because of jealousy and duality with a big X person, there is no place for the newly graduated actress! (Valentini tells me that this remains a hypothesis anyway). The great X, even as a persecuted person, is thought to have said a word in Party. It was enough for Violeta to be sent to work in Dugagjin, in one of the deepest areas where snow was present 6 months of the year. She is appointed there as the head of a Cultural Center and… that’s it.
After a year in Dugagjin, the leaders of the “Teatri Popullor” in Tirana ask to attract her to their team as an actress.
That’s how it happens. For two years from 1976-1978, the actress from Shkodra will be among the best actresses in the country.
Then after the “Aleksander Moisiu” Theater needed a graduate actress. Obviously, Violeta’s profile was the most suitable to become part of the staff of this institution. A job is offered not only to her but also to her husband, Vitor, as a mathematics professor.
Violeta stays for a long time in “A. Moisiu” and builds her artistic career there with many performances performed on this stage and at the same time without separating these performances from the roles played in the cinematography.
The roles played by the actress have been mainly of a dramatic and psychological level, spiritually wounded characters, suffering women or from those roles of impossible, thwarted loves like she was in Moliere’s comedy
“The Doctor in spite of himself” (I semuri per mend). She interpreted the figures assigned by the directors realistically, freely and without straining.
One of the characters performed in the theater was that of Serafina in the drama “Beyond Love” by Dashnor Kokonozi, mixing both poetic and dramatic. Another role in the theater is that of Ajkuna in the epic drama “The Braid of Wars” in 1978.
The year 1980 will be the most successful for the actress who plays in 4 films “Sketerre `43”; “An incident at the port” in the role of Linda; “The old cartridge” in the role of Miranda and “The Hit” in the role of Mira. A year later, with the role of Liliane in the movie “When a movie was being shot” – 1981, she made a passionate, emotional play unfolding the troubled world of a woman in a situation of a marital crisis, with the search for a new spousal relationship.
Later we find Violeta in the films “Mondi and Diana” as well as “The Uninvited” in 1985. In 1987 in “Murder in the Hunt”, continues in 1990 to the film “Chronicle of a night”;
It has happened that the roles assigned to Violeta were taken away from her several times. Of course, such things annoy the artist, but she was never discouraged. Valentini says that even now time even time now does its own thing, something more than 50 years have passed and he does not remember the names of the roles, theatrical performances and films in detail, but he testifies with sincerity that she has had such cases.
There was even harassment from her fellow actresses who were looking for extra words, to load her with tension so that she would go on stage stressed and her performance would be poor!
A low action, to take the role maybe (my opinion). Valentine is a gentleman with a great soul, who conveys peace, love, forgets and will not remember.
He would like to call this simply jealousy between colleagues, normal in any organization or workplace.
I tell Valentini that I have heard of such cases, not only for Violeta, but they have also happened to a group of other actresses… without wanting to open conflicts, personally I would call them jealous with political behind-the-scenes behind which ordinary people were caught, servile, lowly people who even benefited from the system itself.
There wasn’t an institution or workplace that didn’t have a party secretary, an ignorant, parasite who took advantage of and abused the position. I remember a joke of the actor Leka Sefla in the movie “The Illegals”, exactly for those with the undivided profession of fuks (spy): “Eat a spoiled soup spoon somewhere and vomit all your life”!
Ah, biography, the desolate biography, that was never separated from us, perhaps even today in the so-called “democracy”, if you are not a militant, member, sympathizer of any party, you remain “stained”!
Around 1988, a member of her husband’s family, a person with a high military position, escaped with the supply truck together with the family. An event that made a big fuss in the whole of Albania, which was living in the last years of the system. Vitori, Violeta’s husband, is a studious, intellectual man, an outstanding professor of mathematics, among other things, he is the son of Zef Pali, the author of the beautiful Shkodra song “Snowflower” (Lulebore).
After this event, Violeta leaves the “Aleksander Moisiu” theater and is appointed to the “Puppet Theater” of the city, while her husband Vitor is taken to a farm as a worker!
The conversation with the elder brother of the Deda family and the artist from Shkodra, Mr. Valentin continues.
He tells me that Violeta was the closest and very connected person in the family. Everywhere and always together. Even the famous rides in Shkodra’s Square (Pjace) were done together, brother and sister. Whenever Valentin’s friends and colleagues saw them walking together, they would say:
“Hey Valentin, are you still out with your passport?”
This was a way to express the strong bond between the artist sisters and the big brother of the family who was also in the role of father.
“The loss of Violeta has caused me an extraordinary pain, not only spiritually but in all directions, because it happened unexpectedly when I just arrived in America” – says Valentini.
III
The first week of March 1991 is remembered as the week of the mass exodus of thousands of compatriots by ship from the Seaport of Durres. Among that biblical exodus is Violeta’s family, she, her husband Vitor and their two children. They started emigrating to Italy just like every Albanian of that time for a better life. They will stay here until the end of 1992. But their destination will be New York, in the USA.
In New York, during the time period 1996-1998, Violeta will devote herself to studies at the “Sara Lawrence” College of Arts in Bronxville, Yonkers, NY (college modeled after the famous Oxford system). 1998 will also be the year she graduates as a teacher from this college.
Our conversation now comes to a delicate point that I personally would like to avoid, but as Valentin himself says, it is necessary to clarify once and for all the public opinion, which until now has only guessed without knowing anything…
Then I continued: We learned that after an operation that started badly from the doctors, Violeta fell into a coma for a long time (10 years 1998 – 2008), passing away on August 2, 2008.
Yes, Valentini continues the conversation.
I was the one who initially accompanied hem for the medical visit to one of the hospitals in Westchester County, in Valhalla, New York, to “Westchester Medical Center” and then to “Hellen Heys” in Rockland County. The operation that Violeta would perform was quite simple, to remove a pimple on the surface in the left breast and to prevent the activation of a life-threatening condition. At the moment, there was nothing disturbing, more the concern that Violeta herself had (something she did not only for herself but also for all her family members)
And here comes the fatal moment, the sad end of the Albanian artist. The care of those doctors for Violeta is totally negligent and underestimated. Forgotten in anesthesia passes into overdose. Her heart stops beating, and then she goes into a coma from which she never woke up, even after 10 years of being intubated, leaving her entire family and loved ones with hope and anxiety.
The loss in this way is very big.
So much pain!
After Anita Bitri, the well-known singer who was poisoned by carbon dioxide in her family in 2004, Violeta is the second Albanian artist who lost her life from a careless accident in the distant America.
Violeta Deda was and will always be remembered not only as a great actress, with her real interpretations full of emotion that let the viewer understand that this is what is really happening, but she was also a dear sister, an angel of the family, a woman, lady, a wife and a special mother! She was a devout believer where every Sunday she would always be present in the house of God in one of the churches of Westchester, in New York where she chose to live together with her family. God took her as he chooses the best people to live next to him in the infinity of time.
Here on earth, we all miss Violeta!
First of all, her family, her husband, son, daughter, brothers, sisters, misses her. His friends and colleagues who worked together in “Aleksander Moisiu” in Durres, in Kinostudio, in the “Teatri Popullor”, misses her. Shkodra and its citizens, all the Albanian of art lovers misses her.
An angel, with her beautiful face and smile, greets all of us with a hand from above!
This was the story of the two people closest to the family of Violeta Dedes, her sister and brother, people who transmit peace, wisdom, prudence, love and know how to forget injustice, even though their loss is great!
I close this modest writing by being self-responsible that there is still more to say reflecting the portrait of the artist from Shkodra, as well as at the same time thanking Mrs. Pasqualina and Mr. Valentin for the information they shared with us and the opportunity they gave to this “Albanian Cinematography” page, to have the exclusivity and to make a small contribution in terms of the memory of our artists and the preservation of artistic values.
We hope that after this article, there will be more informative ones about the unforgettable lady of the Albanian stage and screen, Violeta Deda, as well as for other actresses, so that the art lovers of the generations to come will be proud of the past from the seven arts in our dear Albania.
Until now, only the name of the artist from Shkodra was mentioned without any accuracy or complete information. Unseen things, distortions and in many cases shrouded in mystery by people mostly incompetent of information who after strangely after the 90s were scattered all the way around the media like mushrooms after the rain. Precisely this group of journalists (with diplomas from the private universities of “Allamulle” and even bought by politics) do not want to get tired to do their work, from which they are even paid well, without ever trying to talk and remember cases like this of Violeta, Anita and Agim Shuke who lost their lives accidentally, and many, many other artists who remain with a “stain in their biography” forever without managing to escape censorship even in the so-called democracy. Even worse for the professors and art critics who make encyclopedic books with “50 pages”, leaving out of this “encyclopedia” hundreds of other actors regardless of their secondary roles or their contribution to film and theater. It is a pity that the term “Encyclopedia” is openly abused, where in these books, for almost all the actors who have chosen the professors themselves (without clearly knowing the criteria followed) to be included in these books, the information ends anyway after 3-4 lines with “etc. etc” (and this written not in the full form).
Such books without criteria, full of errors and lack of information would not be worthy as an encyclopedia even for Easter Island, the farthest end of the globe, not just for a country in Europe, such as Albania, although small and with a modest cinematography compared to that of the world. No one took the trouble to be interested in Violeta (but also in tens and hundreds of other actresses of a secondary profile)
– “There is nothing” said the sister and brother, people with great souls.
“It doesn’t matter” Violeta herself would say if she were still among us. There is nothing and it will never matter to the rotten political class and those in power, but there is a special importance and even a great national responsibility for the Albanian people and artists who never forget their artists, these heroes, pride national, even though the mischievous minds of the rulers and politicians have been trying for a long time with a well-defined plan to “fix” our history as well as in art.
It is not for nothing that they closed the operation of the Kinostudio and destroyed the Theater, it is not for nothing that they want to censor the Albanian film of the Kinostudio, it is not for nothing that the theatrical performances of TP have disappeared from circulation (even those of foreign classics), it is not for nothing that the artists before the 90-ties are mostly forgotten……
Censorship, persecution are only two of the tools that bring regime, a system which unfortunately has only changed the direction in our Albania.
Albanian Cinematography
By Pjerin Bj
Yonkers NY: July 25-29, 2022
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© Material reserved with copyright by the family of the artist Violeta Deda, Mrs. Pasqualina Luka and Mr. Valentin Deda. The photos are also the contribution of Mr. Valentin Deda to the page “Albanian cinematography” and are protected from.
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Abusers are REPORTED! Please take seriously the warnings of the site that has its database, host and center in New York, USA!
This is the second material made public by this page about the portrait and profile of Ms. the unforgettable of the screen stage, Violeta Dedes, the eternal star of the performing arts. The first part is the link here: https://www.kinetografia-shqiptare-sporti.com/violeta-dede-1953-ylli-i-pashuar-i-kinetografise-shqiptare/
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