{"id":671323,"date":"2026-11-01T00:50:09","date_gmt":"2026-11-01T00:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/671323\/"},"modified":"2026-11-01T00:50:09","modified_gmt":"2026-11-01T00:50:09","slug":"before-the-rain-director-manchevski-on-corruption-death-of-beauty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/671323\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Before the Rain’ Director Manchevski on Corruption, ‘Death of Beauty’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tMilcho Manchevski<\/a>, the North Macedonian director whose 1994 debut \u201cBefore the Rain\u201d won Venice\u2019s Golden Lion and earned an Oscar nomination, is back in competition at the Tokyo International Film Festival<\/a> with \u201cSister Brother Manhole Cover<\/a>,\u201d a project stalled for years after he accused his country\u2019s film agency of corruption.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe dark comedy centers on Malina and Viktor, a sister and brother getting by on the fringes of post-Communist Macedonia by pilfering busts of national heroes cast in bronze, along with manhole covers, and selling off the metal. When a job goes wrong and Viktor is seriously hurt, Malina cuts a deal with a crooked doctor. The siblings end up on the run, and eventually take shelter with the doctor\u2019s wealthy mother, Todora, who is blind.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI wanted to tell a story about a kind of love that is rarely at the center of films, yet it is so beautiful: the love between a brother and a sister,\u201d Manchevski tells Variety. \u201cIt can be fierce, complicated, sometimes painful, but also unconditional like no other type of love.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe director also took inspiration from traditional Macedonian songs about sisterly love, which he calls poignant and at times shocking. Of Malina and Viktor, he says: \u201cThey are far from ideal people. But they are deserving of understanding and affection. I am interested in people as they are, with their contradictions, not as examples of how people should behave. Idealized characters make for bad movies.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe siblings break the law and sometimes make terrible mistakes, but Manchevski says he had no wish to turn them into objects of pity. He sees the pair\u2019s refusal to think of themselves as victims as a way of reclaiming their own story.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cPoverty is not picturesque. It is painful and dehumanizing,\u201d he says. \u201cWe should be careful not to romanticize it, or to pretend that people can simply overcome it through courage and good intentions. The circumstances that shape these lives are real, and they are political.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFor Manchevski, the busts stand for the values a society claims to honor while it abandons people like Malina and Viktor. \u201cThey would rather eat than venerate the past and the ideals,\u201d he says. The manhole covers are a plainer matter: everyday infrastructure that turns into a hazard the moment it disappears. Still, he adds, the covers \u201ckeep a lid on the ugliness of society, on its septic underground\u201d until someone pries them loose.<\/p>\n

\n\tManchevski says he follows the characters and story rather than picking a genre in advance. \u201cPeople can be in terrible circumstances and still be funny. They can be cruel and generous, ridiculous and moving,\u201d he says. \u201cLife does not keep these things separate, so I don\u2019t see why a film should.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHaving grown up under Communism, he is wary of films that advertise their moral correctness and offer little beyond it. \u201cArt should not talk down to its audience,\u201d he says. \u201cIt should open up a world, not close the discussion.\u201d He also mourns what he calls \u201cthe death of beauty in cinema today,\u201d though he hopes the tide will turn.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film unfolds in two movements. The first trails the siblings through a rough and unpredictable world; the second tightens its focus on their inner lives. \u201cSticking to genre rules is a bit like painting by numbers \u2013 it makes the film easier to make and easier to digest, but it seldom results in profound work,\u201d Manchevski says.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis marks Manchevski\u2019s fourth time at the Tokyo festival; his previous feature, \u201cKaymak,\u201d played in competition in 2022. \u201cI love Tokyo,\u201d he says. His other credits include \u201cDust,\u201d which opened Venice in 2001, \u201cShadows,\u201d \u201cMothers\u201d and \u201cWillow,\u201d as well as an episode of HBO\u2019s \u201cThe Wire.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201c\u2018Sister Brother Manhole Cover\u2019 was blocked for years after it was financed. After I reported corruption at the Film Agency that goes all the way up to the Prime Minister, I faced political harassment, a media smear campaign and criminal proceedings,\u201d Manchevski says.<\/p>\n

\n\tManchevski reported the alleged corruption in 2020 and 2022, and the project had first been approved in 2023. He says he won two court cases against the agency and that institutions including the State Commission for Prevention of Corruption and the State Audit Office confirmed his account. The Venice Film Festival, Whistleblowing International and Transparency International lent him their support.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI would not reduce the situation of all Macedonian filmmakers to my own experience,\u201d he says. \u201cBut when a filmmaker can be prevented from working for political reasons, that points to a dysfunctional society.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOnce the blockade lifted, Manchevski shot the feature alongside \u201cGood People,\u201d a documentary about those affected by the Ko\u010dani nightclub fire.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film comes from a specific place, but Manchevski says the problems it explores are not confined to North Macedonia. \u201cIt is not only a third world problem. We are all the third world today,\u201d he says. \u201cIn that sense, wealth inequality is the new global warming.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film is a co-production spanning North Macedonia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Albania, Italy and the U.K. Manchevski values the exchange of perspectives such partnerships bring, provided there is trust and a shared commitment to the work. \u201cMany festivals and (European) film funds have abdicated their role in promoting and boosting brave films,\u201d he says. \u201cThis ecosystem is complicit in the death of beauty in contemporary cinema.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe cast includes Sara Klimoska, Filip Trajkovikj, Sonja Mihajlova, Dejan Lilich and Petar Mirchevski. Stefano Falivene served as cinematographer and David Munns as production designer.<\/p>\n

\n\tJane Kortoshev produced the film, with Banana Film as the lead production company. Gala Film (Bulgaria), Sense Production (Serbia), Tirana Film Institute (Albania), Berkeley Media Group (U.K.) and Amarcord Production co-produced, in association with Italy\u2019s Augustus Color. Galina Toneva, Milan Stojanovic, Agron Domi, Yu-Fai Suen, Ludovico Cantisani d\u2019Auria and Augusto Pelliccia are co-producers, while Manchevski, Kiril Kirilov, Svetlana Levicheva and Tatiana Forese serve as executive producers. Steven Barnes is the U.K. associate producer. Coccinelle Film handles world sales.<\/p>\n

\n\tNext up for Manchevski is \u201cHomecoming,\u201d which he describes as a simple story about regret and forgiveness. \u201cI am elated that I finally cracked it open by reducing it to its emotional and narrative essence,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Milcho Manchevski, the North Macedonian director whose 1994 debut \u201cBefore the Rain\u201d won Venice\u2019s Golden Lion and earned…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":671324,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[93,61,60,250716,270,284342,8169],"class_list":["post-671323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-milcho-manchevski","tag-movies","tag-sister-brother-manhole-cover","tag-tokyo-international-film-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671323","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=671323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/671324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}