Young Kristo lives in a village at the edge of gorgeous Lake Prespa, a body of water divided on the borders of three Balkan countries Albania, Macedonia and Greece. In order to support his family, Kristo has become a small-time marijuana smuggler, using his boat and knowledge of the lake waters to transport drug packages from the Albanian to the Macedonian side.

Director Gjergj Xhuvani was born in Tirana, Albania 1963. After writing several scripts for animated films, Xhuvani first established his directing career with the debut of his first dramatic short, BLACK AND WHITE (1991), which won a ‘Special Prize’ at the Larissa Film Festival - Greece. Since 1991, Xhuvani has directed a number of award-winning shorts and full feature films, including THE LAST SUNDAY (1992), his first feature film THE LAST LOVE (1995), a 35mm documentary TIRANA ‘96 (1996), and SLOGANS (2001), for which he won the ‘Youth Award’ at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival, ‘Best Director’ and ‘Best Actress’ awards at the 2001 Tokyo Film Festival, the ‘Special Prize’ award at the Cottbus Festival (Germany) and the ‘Best Actress’ and ‘Best Script’ awards at the Albanian Film Festival. Xhuvani’s wide body of work also includes critically acclaimed films such as DEAR ENEMY (2004), which won ‘Best European Script’ at the Sundance/NHK (USA) amongst other awards at various festivals, and internationally acclaimed EAST WEST EAST: THE FINAL SPRINT (2009), which was selected to represent Albania in the ‘Best Foreign Film’ category at the 2011 US Academy Awards. Xhuvani’s most dramatic feature, DISTANT ANGELS, is an Albanian-Italian-Kosovo co-production that premiered in 2017. Gjergj Xhuvani passed away in 2019. SEEfest is honored to present his last film, MY LAKE (2020).