His daughter, Juna Anagnosti, shared the news on social media, writing: “Farewell, Dhimitër Anagnosti, the director of our lives. After a long illness, you submitted to the law of life. Farewell, dear father!”

Born on January 23, 1936, in the village of Vuno, Himara, southern Albania, Anagnosti graduated with distinction from the “Ali Demi” High School in Vlora before studying film at the leading Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography in Moscow (1954–1960), where he specialized in cinematography.

His diploma film, “A Man Never Dies”, based on a short story by Ernest Hemingway, won first prize at the International Student Film Festival in the Netherlands in 1961.

Upon returning to Albania, Anagnosti joined the state-run film studio “Shqipëria e Re” (“New Albania”), where he played a pivotal role as director, screenwriter, and cinematographer in shaping modern Albanian cinema.

Over his decades-long career, Anagnosti directed and co-wrote numerous acclaimed films, including “Red Poppies on the Wall”, “In Our Home”, “A Tale from the Past”, and “Gjoleka, Son of Abaz”, several of which won awards at international film festivals in the 1980s and 2000s.

He received multiple national honors, including three Republic Awards (1969, 1979, 1983), three top prizes at the Albanian National Film Festival, and the Career Achievement Award in 1995. In 1987, he was named a “People’s Artist”, one of the highest artistic honors in communist Albania.

Anagnosti also had a brief political career. Following the fall of communism, he served as a member of parliament for the centre-right Democratic Party and was appointed Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports in 1992 under the first post-communist government.

In 2011, he was awarded the title “Honor of the Nation” by the President of Albania for his lifetime contribution to Albanian culture and the arts.

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