After the fall of the Berlin Wall -- the scar that ran through Germany -- many left Eastern Europe for the “West” and many contemplated departure. How to tell the stories governed by this persisting and almost mythical desire for the “West”? How to narrate what it meant for Albanians, a people who persevered during 500 years of Ottoman imperialism, a brief and brittle independence in 1912, two World Wars and nearly half a century of a communist regime? Our Threshing Floor Lies in the West (Alb. Epope intime) approaches this story through the lives of two cousins, both adolescents, trying to strike out on their own in the bewildering West. “Sever the roots you’ve grown in this tragic land. Build a new life out there in the West” is their parents’ advice. The narration follows the cousins during the 18 years they spend away from Albania and each other. When they meet again, the time for a reckoning has arrived.