Zgjohu Kërshëri!

“When you are a child, curiosity is always with you; when you grow up, remember to wake it!”

Joni, Amla, Aulona, Glauku and Arbri are five children between ten and thirteen. They are cousins, and close friends besides. After a long time away they come back for the summer to the place they were born, a wonderful place called the Blessed Village. The village truly is blessed by nature: clear sea and boundless green have come together there. Sadly, for some time now it has stood emptied by emigration. Only the old people are left, watching the road, waiting for the children.

At first our five want nothing to do with a summer in a place where only grandmothers and grandfathers remain and technology has never arrived. Neither the sea nor the many-coloured pebbles catch their eye, nor the sunlight, nor the clean air with its taste of salt.

That is, until they discover the chests where their parents kept a few treasured things. A flute whose melody puts only grown-ups to sleep, and which nobody but Joni can play, since it belonged to his mother. In her mother's chest Aulona finds a pad and a pencil with which anything drawn becomes real, and only she can make that happen. Arbri finds his father's compass: only when he hangs it around his neck does the needle begin to move and show him which way to go.

When they were smaller, their parents told them a story about a strange cave. So one night, having put the grandparents to sleep with the sound of the flute, they set out to find the truth of what the cave is hiding.

The cave stands in the middle of the water, but when their parents' objects are brought together the water before its mouth drains away and they can go in without risking their lives. The children discover that the cave is home to His Magnificence Curiosity, an old man, much shrunken and very forgetful, details that make him thoroughly entertaining. Time near Curiosity passes without being felt; the days rush by, filled with surprises, discoveries, entertaining adventures and humour.

Curiosity is a wish, an urge, a great push towards learning things we do not yet know. This time it has become a likeable and charming character who loves being with children as much as children love being with him. Only they can see him, sit with him, play and talk with him, while the grown-ups snapped the thread that joined them long ago.

When His Magnificence Curiosity appears, reality and imagination melt together and a world is made where dreams and wishes can come true.

Day by day the children bring the Blessed Village back to life, and the grandparents with it, and Curiosity himself, who is made young again by their questions and their childhood imagining, becoming a powerful man of boundless ability, and giving the children the chance to enjoy a real childhood with their friends, their family, and above all in the place where they took their first steps.

Wherever you go to build your life, the place you were born should not be forgotten. It is the heart of every person, and it matters for everything that comes after.

“Learn from yesterday! Live today! Hope for tomorrow! And do not forget to wake your curiosity!” — His Magnificence Curiosity.