Bekim Fehmiu

Bekim Fehmiu

Born: June 2, 1936
Died: June 15, 2010
in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bekim Fehmiu (Albanian: [bɛˈkim fɛhˈmiu]; Cyrillic: Беким Фехмију; 1 June 1936 – 15 June 2010) was a Yugoslavian theater and film actor of Albanian ethnicity. He was the first Eastern European actor to star in Hollywood during the Cold War.

In 1960, Fehmiu became a member of the Yugoslav Drama Theatre in Belgrade, which he left in 1967, citing bad treatment, to become a free artist.

Fehmiu's big break was the 1967 film I Even Met Happy Gypsies, a subtle portrayal of Roma life which won two awards in Cannes and was nominated for an Oscar. Known for his macho appearance and mild manner, Fehmiu was then wooed by Western filmmakers and signed a contract with the Academy Award-winning producer Dino De Laurentiis. It was De Laurentiis who, in 1968, cast him as Odysseus in the acclaimed mini-series of The Odyssey. It was the first blockbuster of Italian television and made Fehmiu an icon in parts of Europe.

Fehmiu seemed poised for stardom in Hollywood as well, but his first American film, The Adventurers, was a critical and financial disaster which "ruined any chances for Fehmiu to achieve similar stardom in Hollywood". In 1971, Fehmiu starred in the western action drama The Deserter, directed by Burt Kennedy. In 1973 he played the role of the busy father in Raimondo Del Balzo's heartbreaking film The Last Snows of Spring, and then in 1975 played the role of ex-politician Alexander Diakim in the movie Permission to Kill, with Ava Gardner and Dirk Bogarde. In 1976, Fehmiu starred as fictional murdered Luftwaffe pilot, Hans Reiter in Tinto Brass's film, Salon Kitty alongside Helmut Berger, Ingrid Thulin and Teresa Ann Savoy. He portrayed a Palestinian terrorist in John Frankenheimer's 1977 political thriller, Black Sunday. Despite his Hollywood films achieving little success, he did well in European art house cinema as well as in the theatre, the latter being his preferred medium. He portrayed the father of Mother Teresa, Nikola Boyaxhiu, in the 1982 film La Voce (The Voice). He acted as Joseph in the Italian production A Child Called Jesus (1987). He was to have acted in the movie Genghis Khan (1992), but it was ultimately never made.

In 1987, in protest at the Yugoslavian government's treatment of Kosovar Albanians, he walked off the stage at the Yugoslav Drama Theatre in Belgrade during the play Madame Kollontai by Agneta Pleijel. He left the stage, and soon after, film.

Fehmiu was found dead on 15 June 2010 in his apartment in Belgrade. Initial reports stated he committed suicide. Interior Minister Ivica Dačić said Fehmiu was found shot in his apartment and the gun was registered in Fehmiu's name. He was 74 years old. His body was cremated and the ashes were scattered in Prizren Bistrica in Prizren, his childhood home.

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Movies for Bekim Fehmiu...

Bekim Fehmiu
Title: Bekim Fehmiu
Character: Himself (archive footage)
Released: September 21, 2023
Type: Movie
Bekim Fehmiu was the first Eastern European actor to star in Hollywood during the Cold War, and he was one of the internationally best-known actors.
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Heart and Sword
Title: Heart and Sword
Character: Gormond
Released: November 22, 1998
Type: Movie
After the death of his father, prince Tristan is living in Cornwall at the court of his uncle, King Marke, who treats him like a son. When the Irish king sends his son Morold over to demand high tax payments, Tristan challenges him to combat. He manages to kill Morold but is very badly injured, and is placed in a boat to be healed by the magic powers of the sea, which takes him across to Ireland.
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Title: Julia Forever
Character: Armando Zani #2
Released: September 23, 1989
Type: TV
Italy, 1940: Carmen de Blasco is married to a fascist, but falls in love with a friend of her father Ubaldo, the young partisan Armando Zani. At the end of the war, their daughter Giulia is born, but Carmen returns to her husband. Two decades later, Giulia falls in love with university student Ermes Corsini. Nevertheless, he decides to marry the egocentric, but rich heiress Marta Montini. After some years and a disastrous marriage, Giulia meets the love of her life again. Ermes is annoyed by Marta, so he starts an affair with Giulia, but one day she gets a horrible diagnosis...
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A Child Called Jesus
Title: A Child Called Jesus
Character: Joseph
Released: January 8, 1987
Type: Movie
The film attempts to fill in the "missing years" of Jesus, from ages 3 through 12. When King Herod fearing that the Messiah has indeed been born, orders that all Hebrew male children under the age of three be slain, Joseph moves his family near Egypt. Here, Jesus, sensing His divinity, expresses a desire to return to Nazareth. Travelling homeward with His mother Mary, Jesus flashes forward to events that will unfold in his adult life.
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The Last Story
Title: The Last Story
Released: January 1, 1987
Type: Movie
The story of a young writer who tries to save his personal identity while facing the corrupted environment and temptations of a love affair.
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The Red and the Black
Title: The Red and the Black
Character: Ivan Pipan
Released: May 25, 1985
Type: Movie
This film is the true story of the creation of Labin Republic in 1921. When Italy annexed Istria, Labin area that is very rich in coal became strategically important for the new government. Domestic Croatian and Slovene population were disappointed by the method of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia of selling foreigners. Accumulated social problems and the growing terror of Italians lead to great miners' strike, led by favorite union leader Ivan Pipan. The strikers will be join young miner Ive Blazina, who as commander of the Red Guard workers struggles for the mining republic and the love of beautiful Mary Brezac. The sudden intervention of the Italian army destroys their dreams, and resigned Pipan surrenders. But not everyone agrees with his behavior.
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Pavilón šeliem
Title: Pavilón šeliem
Character: Kálmán Furtek
Released: April 1, 1983
Type: Movie
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The Balad of Mamelouk
Title: The Balad of Mamelouk
Character: Ruler
Released: November 26, 1982
Type: Movie
Mamluk is an unassuming, handsome young peasant who happens to have come along just in time to save the king from a fatal trap, and as a reward, the king offers him the amount of land he can mark off by walking around in one day but he must return to the starting point before sunset.
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The Voice
Title: The Voice
Character: Nicolay
Released: February 13, 1982
Type: Movie
The film tells episodes in the life of seventeen-old Gongia in 1920s Albany that lead her to the decision of becoming a nun under the name of sister Teresa.
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Broad Are the Leaves
Title: Broad Are the Leaves
Character: Baja
Released: April 2, 1981
Type: Movie
The action takes place in 1943 and today, and a Partisan school in Srem is in the center of action. A young journalist gets appointed to shoot a film report about the participants in the Liberation War from this area. In Srem village she meets common, simple people. She discovers that a free territory and a Partisan school was there. She also finds out that everybody acted as one. Deply going through all of those events, young reporter grows mature, identifying herself with the revolution participants.
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The Battle of the Eagles
Title: The Battle of the Eagles
Character: Major Dragan
Released: July 1, 1979
Type: Movie
The first Yugoslav Partisan air force unit. Loosely based on historical facts.
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Arrive Before Daybreak
Title: Arrive Before Daybreak
Character: Esad Ljumi
Released: January 1, 1978
Type: Movie
The story of political prisoners, detained in a jail before the start of the WWII, and their torture and attempts to escape, and join a partisan unit.
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Special Education
Title: Special Education
Character: Žarko Munižaba
Released: April 28, 1977
Type: Movie
Educator and those educated in a home for juvenile delinquents in the same test: approach, take a peek into his soul to become a man. The story of a minor, neglected boys-offenders and their teachers who try to reject the old methods of rehabilitation.
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Black Sunday
Title: Black Sunday
Character: Fasil
Released: April 1, 1977
Type: Movie
An Israeli anti-terrorist agent must stop a disgruntled Vietnam vet cooperating in a Black September PLO plot to commit a terrorist attack at the Super Bowl.
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Ready for Anything
Title: Ready for Anything
Character: Marco
Released: February 24, 1977
Type: Movie
Anna, a young stenography student who after a chance meeting in a park, begins a steamy relationship with Marco (Bekim Fehmiu) a much older married man, who dotes on his young daughter but is quite happy to cheat on his wife. When they first make love Anna reveals her masochistic streak so it's not long before their relationship takes a much darker turn as Marco increasingly pushes the boundaries between love and abuse in the things he asks her to do.
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Salon Kitty
Title: Salon Kitty
Character: Hans Reiter
Released: March 2, 1976
Type: Movie
Kitty runs a brothel in Nazi Germany where the soldiers come to "relax". Recording devices have been installed in each room by a power hungry army official who plans to use the information to blackmail Hitler and gain power himself. A girl named Margherita discovers the little ploy and with Kitty's help plans to take on the dangerous task of exposing the conspiracy.
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Permission to Kill
Title: Permission to Kill
Character: Alexander Diakim
Released: November 20, 1975
Type: Movie
Western intelligence agents try, by all means necessary, to prevent a Communist-bloc defector from leaving the West in his bid to return home to lead an uprising.
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Pavle Pavlovic
Title: Pavle Pavlovic
Character: Pavle Pavlović
Released: July 14, 1975
Type: Movie
Pavle Pavlovic, a steel worker, openly talks about the issues in the steel factory in a television show. He receives an apartment from the board, takes his statement back, but looses the trust of his colleagues. He starts all over again: in another company he gains new friends, however while facing the criminals who illegally transport workers abroad, he loses his life.
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Libera, My Love
Title: Libera, My Love
Character: Sandro Poggi
Released: March 21, 1975
Type: Movie
A strong-willed woman risks everything to support the cause of anti-fascism in World War II Italy.
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Cagliostro
Title: Cagliostro
Character: Count Alexander Cagliostro / Giuseppe Balsamo
Released: February 21, 1975
Type: Movie
After attending esoterical studies with a wise man, Cagliostro, a mysterious Italian count, received the gift of supernatural powers. He started to travel all over Europe to heal the poor. But he is also a member of a pre-revolutionary lodge the aim of which is to give freedom to the populations of Europe. This cannot be tolerated by the 18th century's establishment and bought the Pope and the regal house of France try to eliminate him. So Cagliostro is locked up in a castle, while his wife is killed. But when in 1795 the door of his cell is opened there is nothing inside but a sword...
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The Wind
Title: The Wind
Character: Adam Milovanović
Released: July 12, 1974
Type: Movie
The story of two workers who returned from abroad. One of them wants to find a good job, Adam, and the other one wants to earn money by smuggling, Beli. Between them two there's young woman, Mila, who has had experience with the second one. Running away from the man who is the incarnation of evil for her, she is trying to find happiness and peace with another one in vain.
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Silence the Witness
Title: Silence the Witness
Character: Il dottor Giorgio Sironi
Released: May 15, 1974
Type: Movie
De Luca is killed by Marchetti's chauffeur. Marchetti ordered the murder because he was to be accused by De Luca. The two have a car accident while going home to get an alibi. There is a witness, Sironi, who calls the police. But when the police arrive the car has gone and so have the two men. Inspector Santi and young judge Novelli look into the strange case. Marchetti, however, is a powerful man and Sironi and his family begin to be obsessed first by threats then by assaults.
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Deps
Title: Deps
Character: Deps
Released: March 26, 1974
Type: Movie
A film about a small-time gangster, a loser who seems is finally on the road of going straight.
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Il gioco della verità
Title: Il gioco della verità
Character: Alberto Santoro
Released: March 17, 1974
Type: Movie
In the slums of Naples, a prostitute, when questioned by police about the death of one of her clients who fell from the gutter, claims it was an accident. Later the woman gives another version, accusing the owners of the boarding house of being murderers. A trial will begin that will decide which side is the "truth."
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The Last Snows of Spring
Title: The Last Snows of Spring
Character: Roberto
Released: December 20, 1973
Type: Movie
A 10-year-old boy starts to die of neglect when his widowed father spends too much time forsaking his parental duties in favour of playboy activities and a jet-set life-style.
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Bekim Fehmiu Visits Albania
Title: Bekim Fehmiu Visits Albania
Character: Himself
Released: January 1, 1972
Type: Movie
Albania and neighboring Yugoslavia officially broke ties in 1948. But in 1971, the Hoxha regime was honored to welcome the ethnic Albanian actor Bekim Fehmiu (1936-2010), at the time an international star in Yugoslav theater and film. Before his trip to Albania, Fehmiu had appeared in the popular Italian television smash The Odyssey (1968) and the Cannes-winning I Even Met Happy Gypsies (1967). Dokufest will also feature a photo exhibit of recently-discovered still images taken during Bekim Fehmiu’s Albanian visit.
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A Trap for the General
Title: A Trap for the General
Character: Doktor, obaveštajac OZNE
Released: November 26, 1971
Type: Movie
Immediately after the war, OZNA insert an outstanding intelligence agent to catch the General Draza Mihajlovic.
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The Deserter
Title: The Deserter
Character: Captain Victor Kaleb
Released: December 4, 1970
Type: Movie
A young cavalry officer finds his woman tortured by the Apaches and blames the Army for not properly protecting the outpost, so becomes a deserter and an avenger, stalking and killing Indians without warning.
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The Adventurers
Title: The Adventurers
Character: Dax Xenos
Released: March 25, 1970
Type: Movie
The wealthy playboy son of an assassinated South American diplomat discovers that his father was murdered on orders of the corrupt president of the country- a man who was his father's friend and who, in fact, his father had helped put into power. He returns from living a jet-set life in Europe to lead a revolution against the government, only to find out that things aren't quite as black and white as he'd assumed.
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Do Not Mention the Cause of Death
Title: Do Not Mention the Cause of Death
Character: Mihajlo
Released: April 16, 1968
Type: Movie
In an atmosphere of WWII, a village dyer wants to help his folks in their sorrow and distress by supplying them with the black paint, but there is not enough black paint for all of them, because death works faster than the dyer. His wife was raped, but the naive dyer believes in "straight" intentions of his godfather - black marketeer, and he gives away free canvas to the people. But in all their pain, people are unable to distinguish good intentions from the evil ones.
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Title: The Odyssey
Character: Ulisse
Released: March 24, 1968
Type: TV
Italian miniseries based on Homer's Odyssey.
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Odissea
Title: Odissea
Character: Ulisse
Released: March 24, 1968
Type: Movie
Odysseus' journey told in Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. After fighting in the Trojan War, Odysseus spends years trying to return home to Itaka.
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Protest
Title: Protest
Character: Ivo Bajšić
Released: July 8, 1967
Type: Movie
A man cannot bear the superficiality of human relationships, and when his best friend lets him down, he commits suicide by jumping off a skyscraper.
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I Even Met Happy Gypsies
Title: I Even Met Happy Gypsies
Character: Bora
Released: March 27, 1967
Type: Movie
The protagonist, Bora, is a charming but mean-spirited gypsy, while his older wife, Lence, is submissive. Bora is in love with the younger Tisa, who is being offered in marriage by her father. The two get themselves in trouble and eventually have to flee. Tisa rejects her husband and she and Bora get married in the church, and their adventures continue.
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The Feverish Years
Title: The Feverish Years
Character: Mirko
Released: July 14, 1966
Type: Movie
A story about two people who didn't find their way in big city. He came from the countryside and works in steel factory, she's working in factory restaurant. Their lives change when they meet and fall in love.
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The Time of Love
Title: The Time of Love
Character: Milija, trubač (segment "Put")
Released: July 10, 1966
Type: Movie
"The Time of Love" is omnibus of two parts. Part I: Experiences and growing up of a 16 years old girl without much of parents' attention. Part II: A brother looks for a husband for his sickly sister, but during that search she finds her true love.
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The Swarm
Title: The Swarm
Character: Halil Beg
Released: May 16, 1966
Type: Movie
During turbulent times of the First Serbian uprising in 1804, on a freshly liberated land, a woman who betrayed her husband to the Turks has been taken to the court. A complicated truth and the real motives of the case get overlooked by the judge, a neutral Turk.
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Klaxon
Title: Klaxon
Character: Marko
Released: July 15, 1965
Type: Movie
A group of people go on a picnic in the mountains. Longing for some love and understanding, they try to get close to one another, but the barriers are insurmountable. Failing to pull through their nutshells of solitude, they get back to the city, the eternal desert.
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The Enemy
Title: The Enemy
Released: June 11, 1965
Type: Movie
An ex-soldier named Slobodan Antic, referred to by a friend as one of the last idealists, finds himself losing control over his own life when a man identical to him starts following him around, claiming to be a friend but behaving suspiciously. Before long his dealings with this doppelganger begin to cost him and his professional and romantic life grow more and more confused.
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The Girl
Title: The Girl
Released: May 7, 1965
Type: Movie
A lyrical fourfold perspective on WWII through the eyes of a young partisan couple, a town photographer and a German officer.
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Shoot and It Shall Open
Title: Shoot and It Shall Open
Released: April 16, 1965
Type: Movie
Three young delinquents, two boys and a girl - go through their personal drama alongside wrongdoings they do. The local chief inspector gives his best to help them, besides the fact that he's beholden to arrest them.
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Under the Same Sky
Title: Under the Same Sky
Character: Kerim
Released: January 1, 1964
Type: Movie
Three partisans come to a fascist held town at the end of the war to create diversions. Their protector is tortured to reveal their whereabouts, but the partisans arrive in time.
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Sasha
Title: Sasha
Character: Marić, poručnik Kraljevske vojske
Released: January 1, 1962
Type: Movie
A mysterious person is killing pro-Nazi officials in a small Serbian town. A group of children accidentally reveal his identity.