On a winter’s day, Nena gathers her family to celebrate her birthday. Il paradiso del pavone is a small journey into the intimacy and authenticity of human beings: a film about an extended family in which everyone talks but no one really listens. Until an unexpected event forces the family members to look into each other’s eyes and reveal themselves for what they really are.

A daughter torn between two mothers, one who raised her with love and her biological mother, who instinctively claims her back.

Hana Doda, still a girl, escapes from her destiny of being wife and servant which is imposed on the women in the inhospitable mountains in Albania. She appeals to the old law of the Kanun and swears her eternal virginity thus becoming a “sworn virgin”. She turns into a man, takes up a rifle and becomes Mark, Mark Doda. It is in exchange for this sacrifice that Hana is allowed to be considered at the same level as other men. Her battle does not only mean that she must rebel against what destiny has been writing on her body for centuries, but she must also reject, in name of this rebellion, every form of love.