Is it possible for a film to capture even a tiny glimpse of the human condition?  That’s what director Visar Morina has devoted his career to — and most recently, his World Cinema Dramatic feature entry “Shame and Money” does just that. The film premieres Sunday at the 2026 Sundance Fil m Festival, marking Morina’s return after the screening of his debut feature, “Exile,” at the 2020 festival. Born in Pristina, Kosovo, Morina spent his early years during a period marked by political instability and war — a reality he understood differently as a child than he does now. “These were very difficult times for my parents, less for me,” he recalled. “When you grow up in everyday life, you think the whole world is like this. I remember my childhood to be a very nice time, but when I think back, I think it must have been hell for my parents.” His family eventually moved to Germany, and while Morina hadn’t originally been interested in filmmaking, a happenstance experience in theater at 17 — and a love for German playwright Bertolt Brecht — made him more interested in that form of storytelling.  “I read a lot, very much so. And I was not interested in films at all,” he said. “But then I ended up seeing basically two scenes that deeply, deeply touched me, and where I was thinking, ‘Oh, film can also be something else.’ It was, like so many things in my life, (something that) happened by accident.” What is that “something else” feeling? He explained it with a story. One day, while in film school and at his college home, he had an interaction with a stranger.  “I came from school to the kitchen, and there was a guy I never saw before, and it turned out he was a guy who used to live there,” Morina said. “Then at some point, I wanted to go to my room, and he wanted to leave the house, and my room was on the first floor and the kitchen was on the second floor, so we had to walk down the stairs. And then I said, ‘Bye.’ And then he said, ‘Maybe we can have a coffee sometime.’”   Morina went on: “He’d said it very nice and everything, he wanted to make it like nothing — and maybe I was completely wrong — but I felt like this was a very lonely person.” It’s those scenes in films — that capture emotion in one simple phrase — that Morina explained make a story come alive. Kosovar filmmaker Visar Morina is the director of “Shame and Money.” Credit: Photo courtesy of Sundance Institute “Sometimes I see films and I feel before they’re alive, they are dead,” he said. “They capture nothing. I think in the best case, you capture, sometimes, the human condition. Or also, a record of the time.” It’s why, as a director, Morina said he does a lot of takes during filming, even though it’s expensive to repeat scenes and takes extra time, because he’s looking for that exact note of authenticity. In “Shame and Money,” the characters’ inner lives are explored through those snippets of conversation, where one-liners can convey a wealth of emotion simply by their delivery. The message hits home in the silence and action that follows. The film follows a family who, after losing their livelihood in a rural village of Kosovo, must move to the capital city (Pristina) to find work. There, they rely on the financial help of family members as the parents figure out how to support themselves. Morina said the parents, played by Astrit Kabashi and Flonja Kodheli, are heavily inspired by his own. “I took, by accident, a photo of the two main characters in the film, and I felt very strangely reminded of my parents,” he said. “I’m getting older, and somehow I think a lot about then and now, and parents. As probably every kid, I had sometimes quite difficulties with them and fights and everything, and the older I’m getting, the more I do understand also the shit that they went through.” In hindsight, he said he recognized how much they sacrificed to protect him as a child, to not involve him in their struggle. With that empathy, it’s harder to judge their choices and actions — a principle central to “Shame and Money.”  “I asked myself what I would do if I was in this situation, and I’m trying not to judge them. I think judging sucks,” he said. “I think my job is to get as close as it gets to the situation and to take it as serious as it gets, not to judge. And I think we are way too fast with judging.” Shame, he said, is such an interesting emotion — not to be confused with a wounded pride. “I have no clue what people mean when they talk about pride,” he said. “I really do not understand what they mean by this. What I do understand is when I feel some lines are crossed, when I feel my dignity as a human being is limited. I do understand this, but this has, for me, nothing to do with pride. It’s just like, ‘I am here, man, and I want you to see me as I see you.’” Money is one of the two forces in the film that pushes the story along and motivates the characters, whether they have money or not. Morina pointed to money, or possessions, as indicators of class. “I was reading years ago an article about lipstick, and there’s a rule about it. The article said, the lower the income in a country is, the higher is the sale of lipstick,” he said. “Because the need becomes more important to tell, ‘I am not this poor idiot.’” He gave another example: “If you listen to my friends talking about food, how important food is, they are actually not talking about food. They are talking about how cool they are. It’s a class thing. Going to a beer shop, you need a certain amount of money. There are these codes; you include or exclude something.” In Kosovo, those codes are heightened because of how tight-knit the communities are. “Kosovo, it’s a bit different because it’s very small. And then the reputation becomes like currency,” Morina said. “I see there are two things: being needy and being a loser.” Considering someone as lesser or an outsider because they have needs is the real issue, something the film explores. Morina criticised the way people insult others as being a “victim.” “It tells we are in very insecure times,” he said. “This is what makes us human, to feel empathy for the one who is less and not making fun of it.”  Morina said having “Shame and Money” premiere at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, six years after his first Sundance debut with “Exile,” has forced him to reflect. “Being there with ‘Exile’ and then coming back, and Corona started — I feel the world has changed so, so much since then,” he said. “It made me somehow think more about the last six years. … So many things went in a direction I would have never expected it will be like.” He admitted that his first year felt like a whirlwind, and he hopes that he’ll have more time to actually enjoy the festival this time around. He knows his cast is especially excited for the opportunity. At this point, he said he’s stopped watching his film — and he’ll wait outside during the premiere, he added with a laugh.  “It’s always not really real,” he said. “You have been working on this for so long, and then there’s a time when there’s nothing you can do. You are a bit cut off. It’s like it’s not yours anymore.”  “Shame and Money” will premiere at 11:30 a.m. on Sunday, Jan. 25, at the Library Center Theatre, followed by a QA with Morina and his cast. ‘Shame and Money’ in-person screenings 11:30 a.m., Jan. 25, Library Center Theatre 1:50 p.m., Jan. 26, Megaplex Redstone 3 6:15 p.m., Jan. 29, Broadway Centre Cinemas, Salt Lake City 6:30 p.m., Jan. 31, Holiday Village Cinemas 1 Online 8 a.m. Jan. 29-11:55 p.m., Feb. 1 The post Sundance premiere ‘Shame and Money’ seeks glimpses of the human condition appeared first on Park Record. ...read more read less