The English have their chalk horses and in Scotland there is a horse picked out in rocks on a Buchan hillside, but I doubt that the blood, sweat and tears which went into these is in any way comparable to that shed over Communist Albania's slogans.

Slogans is adapted from a Ylljet Alicka short story and tells of the bizarre practise of creating massive political slogans from white-washed stones on hillsides. Usually 15 metres long, with letters of one to two metres high, they were one of the most prominent displays of propoganda under Enver Hoxha's dictatorship. Slogans were dictated by party headquarters and in schools, each teacher was assigned one, to be constructed and cared for his, or her, class.

When handsome young biology teacher, Andre, arrives in a small mountain village from Tirane, he has no idea how central these slogans are to local politics. Pretty soon he is embroiled in a series of incidents which move fluidly between comedy and tragedy and, at once, draw the audience in.

This is a delightful film, a surreal combination of a Kafka play and Compton McKenzie's Whisky Galore. There is additional appeal in the fact that we are learning about a little-known piece of history in a still largely mysterious country. Try finding a travel book on Albania, even though democracy has existed there since 1991.

Andre starts well in the eyes of the establishment when he chooses "Up with Revolutionary Spirit" for his class rather than "American Imperialism is only a Paper Tiger", not because of the content of the words, but the number of letters. Less letters, less work. This leaves "American Imperialism" to Diana, the pretty French teacher, who is disliked by the school principle for her liberal attitudes and resistance to his sexual overtures.

The absurdity of the slogan work quickly becomes apparent to Andre, especially as the children pay scant regard to the meaning and are only concerned with letter numbers and form - "S"s are very difficult, he is told.

Meanwhile, absurdities mount as the village prepares for the motorcade of a Party dignitary. There is an ideological incident when a slogan, "Vietnam will Win", is discovered to be ten years out of date, as the teacher had not realised the war was over. Fond and nostalgic about his slogan, the words are finally changed to "Keep it up Vietnam."

A small boy is accused of being a traitor when he mistakenly calls China revisionist, rather than socialist, during geography class. Persecuted for being poor, his illiterate goatherd father is found guilty of willfully destroying letters. This incident goads the humanitarian Andre into standing up at the trial and pointing out the absurdity of the situation.

While these incidents are saturated with comic possibility, director Gjergj Xhuvani does not exploit them for the sake of movie-making. He wants to tell it like it was, so don't expect a no-loose-endings, Hollywood style, romantic finale. Do expect a fascinating and memorable film.