BALKANS : THE VALLEY OF THE FORGOTTEN | France 5 | Les Routes de l'Impossible

In Albania, men defy precipices every day. Luan’s truck no longer has any brakes, and gasoline-filled cylinders clutter the passenger compartment, connected to the engine by a hose. System D is the rule in these mountains, as the country is still struggling to come to terms with its past. Albania lived under one of the world’s harshest communist regimes for 45 years, and Albanians were not allowed to own a private car until 1991. Many villages can only be reached by track. To transport their harvest of medicinal plants, Peter and his son have to negotiate steep walls and drive their trucks over log bridges. The other valleys are no better off. From the spectacular Lake Koman to the turquoise waters of the Kir River, the trails are still an ordeal, and the ghosts of the “Kanun” have not entirely dissipated. This customary law, which authorizes blood vengeance, still threatens some families, and Sandra, an Italian nun, is doing what she can to help the locals. She takes to the icy roads in her old 4×4.

In Bosnia-Herzegovina, Velibor and his cousin Radomir have to get back to their farm at all costs, as an excessively hot and dry summer has deprived their animals of good pasture, and hay is running out. But the snow patches and waterlogged ruts give them a lot of headaches, which they treat with vodka! Their truck, straight out of an ex-Yugoslav army surplus, hurtles like a tank through forest and hills. But nothing ever goes according to plan.