{"id":593087,"date":"2026-08-14T14:12:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T14:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/593087\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T14:12:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T14:12:09","slug":"milcho-manchevski-on-being-blacklisted-and-club-fire-doc-good-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/593087\/","title":{"rendered":"Milcho Manchevski on Being Blacklisted and Club Fire Doc ‘Good People’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIt took over three decades for Macedonian filmmaker Milcho Manchevski<\/a> \u2014 whose debut feature \u201cBefore the Rain\u201d won the top award in Venice in 1994 and was Oscar nominated \u2014 to direct his first documentary. But when he first heard about the nightclub fire that took dozens of lives in North Macedonia in 2025, he could not stop thinking about the victims and those who went through the unfathomable tragedy. The result is the somber \u201cGood People,\u201d having its world premiere as part of the documentary competition at the Sarajevo Film Festival<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tOn March 16, 2025, sparks from indoor fireworks hit the ceiling of the Pulse nightclub in Ko\u010dani, North Macedonia. The fire spread with violent speed, killing 63 people and injuring a further 193. Subsequent investigation concluded the club was unlicensed and operated against several safety standards, including insufficient emergency exits and only one available fire extinguisher. The tragedy is the deadliest fire in North Macedonian history, and led to a thorough inspection of similar venues countrywide, with dozens of entertainment venues shut down.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tSpeaking with Variety ahead of the premiere, Manchevski says he wanted to make a film that gave the survivors \u201ca voice.\u201d \u201cTheir experience and thoughts had to be recorded and shaped into an honest narrative for future generations,\u201d he adds. \u201cWe started filming only a month after the tragedy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tManchevski decided to at last direct a documentary because he felt there was \u201ca lot of noise in the media but very little of it was [the victims\u2019] unfiltered experiences, emotions and thoughts.\u201d \u201cVery quickly, the tragedy was hijacked for political goals,\u201d he adds, referring to the turmoil that followed the fire \u2014 North Macedonia\u2019s then Interior Minister Pan\u010de To\u0161kovski said the nightclub only obtained an operating license thanks to \u201ccorruption and bribery,\u201d with country-wide anti-corruption protests following the declarations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe director notes, however, that this is not strictly his first time working within documentary, having approached the form through his 2010 experimental film \u201cMothers,\u201d which played Toronto and Berlin. \u201cIn general, I have a bit of an issue with the pompous presentation some docs have,\u201d he says, emphasizing how filmmakers often resort to \u201cmanipulative techniques, such as swelling music, guiding voice-over, tons of B-roll of gorgeous sunsets\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tMilcho Manchevski, courtesy of Boryana-Pandova<\/p>\n

\n\tWith this in mind, Manchevski decided to keep \u201cGood People\u201d \u201cextremely ascetic, austere and minimalist\u201d to \u201cavoid the temptation to manipulate.\u201d All interviews are conducted against a black background, with survivors wearing dark clothes, and no archival footage of the incident has been used. \u201cWe are making the viewer confront their words and their faces one-on-one, directly, with as little mediation as possible. Our job was to stay out of the way. Restraint is the word of the day, and it is surprising how much effort it takes to achieve that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAsked about the challenges of making the film, the director says he had to work in secret because he alleges he was \u201cblacklisted by the Macedonian Film Agency.\u201d \u201cThey blocked all of my films [\u2026] documented by Whistleblowing International and Transparency International, among others,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThat also meant that I had to finance the whole thing myself,\u201d he adds. \u201cAll the proceeds from this film will go to the survivors in Kochani.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tManchevski is thrilled to premiere \u201cGood People\u201d in Sarajevo, a festival that has been part of his career since \u201cBefore the Rain.\u201d The director recalls being selected for the first edition of the event in 1995, when the Bosnian War was still raging, and Sarajevo remained under siege. \u201cThere was a temporary break in the fighting, and we entered Sarajevo in a UN armored vehicle. It was a somber, almost religious experience. The audience watched a film that references their struggle, the war in Bosnia. For me, it was possibly the most emotional screening of the film after the one in Venice, which brought it a Golden Lion and eventually an Oscar nomination. It feels good coming back more than 30 years later to a prosperous festival and a healing city.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAs for what\u2019s next, the director says his next film, \u201cSister Brother Manhole Cover,\u201d is \u201cpremiering soon at a major festival.\u201d Manchevski worked on both films at the same time, which he says is \u201cunusual\u201d but was his only alternative after being \u201cblocked from working [\u2026] and subjected to political persecution in my native Macedonia.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn 2020 and again in 2022, I reported corruption, rigged competitions, and conflict of interest at the Film Agency and, in revenge, they blocked all my previous films as well as the ones in progress,\u201d he says. \u201cEventually, I won two court cases against the Film Agency, and they had to allow me to work. So, when their dam broke, I made not one, but two films at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe filmmaker describes \u201cSister Brother Manhole Cover\u201d as a \u201cblack comedy about the rich and the poor, about searching for love and family on the outskirts of society.\u201d Manchevski confirms the film, a co-production between Macedonia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Albania, Italy and the U.K., is now ready. Rome-based Coccinelle Film Sales is handling sales.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It took over three decades for Macedonian filmmaker Milcho Manchevski \u2014 whose debut feature \u201cBefore the Rain\u201d won…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":593088,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[93,61,60,250716,270,250717],"class_list":["post-593087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-milcho-manchevski","tag-movies","tag-sarajevo-film-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=593087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593087\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/593088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=593087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=593087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=593087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}