Discoveries from Macedonia World Cinema

The film follows seven consecutive days at a pivotal moment in Mother Teresa’s life, the period where she decides to leave the Loreto Entally convent in Calcutta and launch her own order.

15-year-old Ahmet, from a remote Yuruk village in North Macedonia, finds refuge in music while navigating his father’s expectations, a conservative community, and his first experience with love — a girl already promised to someone else.

Cyprus, 1882: Eleni, an outcast painter, tries to resurrect her dead children but instead unleashes mythical creatures upon her village. Only by becoming a good mother to a talented, but abused child can she reverse the curse.

After losing their livelihood in a village, a Kosovar family is forced to move to the capital in pursuit of a place in a hypercapitalist society.

When nomadic beekeepers break Honeyland’s basic rule (take half of the honey, but leave half to the bees), the last female beehunter in Europe must save the bees and restore natural balance.

Two parallel tales of redemption, a century apart. In the New York storyline, Edge hunts for Angela's gold to pay back a debt, and gradually grows closer to her. In the Macedonian story, the brothers end up fighting for opposite sides of a revolution, with the religious Elijah taking up sides with the Ottoman sultan and gunslinger Luke joining "the Teacher" , a Macedonian rebel.

The circularity of violence seen in a story that circles on itself. In Macedonia, during the war in Bosnia, Christians hunt an ethnic Albanian girl who may have murdered one of their own. A young monk who's taken a vow of silence offers her protection. In London, a photographic editor who's pregnant needs to talk it out with her estranged husband and chooses a toney restaurant.

A group of problematic, abandoned teenagers from a Juvenile Adoption Centre share their destiny on the margins of the society, holding only on the teachings of their caring educator about the true values of life. But a series of tragic events that culminate with the death of one of the youngsters by the hand of a police inspector, will crush their illusions for a normal future in a world that stigmatizes them as outcasts. Incited by the awakening words of the broken educator and the emerging, ferocious leader of the pack, the boys take the path of revenge, which soon escalates into a spiral of violence and takes them deep into the catacombs of the criminal underworld.

Eight-year-old Zoran is the hero of this story set in Skopje during the German occupation of the city in World War II. Through his eyes, we experience all the cruelty, poverty and suffering of wartime. A love affair between his Macedonian mother and a German officer will help his family get through the hard times…

Deep in a secluded forest, Marko lives in isolation under the watchful eye of his overprotective father, who is determined to keep his young son safe from the Evil Ones. Deeply lonely, and increasingly curious about the outside world, Marko yearns to uncover the secrets of life beyond the forest and begins venturing further from home. But after a cruel turn of events grants his wish sooner than he ever imagined, Marko is forced to flee and embark on a grim journey filled with unknown dangers and a glimpse into a world forever changed.

Spitz is the German-Jewish coach of the football team Macedonia during World War II. Under his leadership, the team fights to become the champion of Bulgaria's National Football League

Seventeen-year-old Sara is hiding a secret on a school trip. When the trip spirals out of control and Sara witnesses a classmate’s sexual assault, she and the girl seal a bond that will last forever.

Sixty years after the nuclear devastation, a few survivors cling to life in a ruined industrial zone. Ten-year-old Niko lives with his grandfather Lexi, convinced that their territory is a "paradise" worth defending. Lexi indoctrinates Niko to hate the rival survivors across the railroad tracks. A violent confrontation with a feral child triggers a brutal conflict in which the children serve the adults' power struggles. As the adults' violence escalates, Niko realizes that Lexi is not the man he thought he was. The arrival of Xeni's family reveals that borders are a prison, and escape threatens deadly consequences for the children.

'Hidden' is a drama based on a true story, where a married couple is faced with a problem that the science describes as parapsychology phenomena but among the religious people is known as demonic possession.

Two days before the wedding, Dragana decides that she will not marry the weak and predictable Momo. His headstrong father Leso strikes a deal with her – to act as the bride just for the day. But instead of saving the family’s honor, it only starts a traumatic farce for everyone involved.

Asil is a young Syrian refugee awaiting documents in Turkey while processing the trauma of losing her home and family. Her story gives voice to a charming gigantic puppet named Amal, who represents millions of migrant and displaced children in a walk from the Syrian border in Turkey all the way across Europe. Escorted and animated by a group of puppeteers who are themselves refugees, Amal’s epic journey is one of compassion and discovery.

Obsessed with the disappearance of her best friend who became a victim of sex trafficking, a journalist plots an undercover operation in order to expose the criminal network. But as her accomplices draw closer to the boss, the situation gets out of control and they struggle to get out alive.

In 1958, during the Cold War, two scientists, two worlds, and two ideologies faced a race for survival at the Vinca Scientific Institute near Belgrade.

At a small border-post on the Yugoslav-Albanian border, yet another generation of soldiers suffering the usual amount of boredom awaits the end of their service, counting days to the moment when they should take their uniforms off for good. It is the spring of 1987 and the thought never even crosses their mind that they would, in fact, put them back on quite soon and go to war.

Dita, who, despite never aspiring to be a mother, finds herself compelled to raise her girlfriend’s two daughters—Mia, a tiny troublemaker, and Vanesa, a rebellious teenager. As their individual wills clash, a heartwarming story unfolds about an unlikely family's struggle to stay together.

A mild political satire about a peculiar friendship between a lonesome monkey and an (impoverished) zoo warden, and about an upside-down world in transition as seen by a chimpanzee.

DOGMA 95 exists for over 10 years now. But it has been living in the Balkans forever. A desperate filmmaker swears it's time to kill DOGMA . But how far will she go to make it come true?

In Stip, a small town in Macedonia, every January the local priest throws a wooden cross into the river and hundreds of men dive after it. Good fortune and prosperity are guaranteed to the man who retrieves it. This time, Petrunya dives into the water on a whim and manages to grab the cross before the others. Her competitors are furious - how dare a woman take part in their ritual? All hell breaks loose, but Petrunya holds her ground. She won her cross and will not give it up.

Inspired by the COVID 19 pandemics, a worried husband and father invents a professional family board game so he can strengthen the bonds of families in times of pandemics, but instead, he ends up locking his family members in separate rooms and creates “a board game for one”.

A wealthy young couple has a different lifestyle than a neighboring middle-aged couple, but both face intimate issues that impact their private lives.

A teacher teaching kids how to smile in a dystopian world.

Two women - a young doctor and the wife of a former prime minister, are trying to escape the grip of the American government and European diplomats, who are playing their game of power and torture in a small country in Eastern Europe.

Inspired by the folktale of the boy Siljan, who, after a quarrel with his father, turns into a stork and leaves home, the film is a story about the relationship between a farmer and a white stork.

For the first time in his life, Miro (40) spends the night with a prostitute someone sent to him in a hotel after a business.

In the dead of night, a Macedonian teenager sneaks out to meet a 40-year-old man he’s been messaging online. When their car gets stuck in the remote woods, isolation strips away fantasy, forcing him to reckon with power, desire, and the possibility of real danger.

Three Macedonian women have to contend with control over their bodies, tradition, loyalty, pregnancy and adoption. They have not set out to change the world or society, but their struggle to become mothers makes them unlikely heroines. The three bittersweet stories, one medieval, two contemporary, mirror and contrast one another, exploring themes of love, trust and motherhood.

In the year 2019, after global destruction and descent into savagery, the immortal Kuzman tried to discover his destiny in order to learn how to die. As he enters the whirling circles of time, we discover the blasphemy of our century, and how it is to close its circle.

Set in Kosovo in 1990 at a time of political volatility as Yugoslavia is breaking apart, ERA tells the story of 17-year-old Era, a rebellious Albanian girl who has fallen in love with Betim, a man stuck between two worlds on account of his having an Albanian father and a Serbian mother. Era is forced not to see him for a while until the situation calms.

Burdened by memories of their late father, three sisters struggle to escape the suffocating environment of the dying town of Veles. A contemporary story of urban decay, „Jas sum od Titov Veles“ employs a stark realism to depict the vivid landscape of post-Communist Macedonia.

Lea, 21, is being diagnosed with leukemia. Having no time left she starts appreciating every hour, seeing beauty where she's never seen before. Hoping she could change the world, Lea makes a video project aiming to give her contribution to living by creating a viral happiness effect.

A Macedonian military deserter and his Italian blood-brother are searching for a dead grandmother wrapped up in a stolen carpet, all over the Balkan's criminal underworld.

A hard-headed tomboy spots the unlikely solution to all her problems in an all-male religious ritual.

Story about people and their destinies, frustrated by war traumas who try to erase memories of their past.

An action drama about an enthusiastic junior officer from the Hague War Tribunal in pursuit of justice.

After a quarrel with his wife, a man leaves their apartment with one suitcase only. Having slept in a train station, the police legitimates him and found him suspicious. Soon he'll find himself locked in a prison with several other, mostly innocent people. The true horror begins only then.

After a car accident, Sofia and Branko's idyllic life unravels. As they struggle to cope with the aftermath, their conscience haunts them, transforming their relationship and leading to a series of unexpected events.

After a tragic miscarriage, Nimet -a middle aged woman- gets stuck in the conservative society in Istanbul while her beloved younger sister Öznur carries a burden of her own in the family, trying to struggle her own demons.

The story begins with a shot of an old craftsman with his back to the camera. Not by chance. He, as well as two other craftsmen who work with wood, has life turned its back on them. After many years of successful sell of their products, today, in the modern way of life, their survival is threatened.

An intriguing story about a girl with a lot of problems and three men trying to make a film.

Macedonia is a small country, in the heart of the Balkans, which for five centuries was under the yoke of the Ottoman Empire. The action of the film "To the Hilt" takes place in the years of the general collapse and "free fall", after the Macedonian uprising of 1903 which was extinguished in blood. The story is a love quadrangle between an uncompromising idealist rebel, a merciless Turkish officer, an opportunist rich man's son returning home after his studies in Europe and a lucid and open minded European woman, who flirts with the three men and puts in train a series of events with dire consequences, that she could hardly imagine. The film is a harsh and romantic story in which the eternal Macedonian cause for own identity and independence is seen through the prism of relativity of the ideas of freedom, justice, love, sacrifice, and treason.

An omnibus of ten short films by ten young directors.

A successful young doctor with a beautiful wife, a happy child, and a comfortable house finds his life suddenly changed in ways he never thought possible after being injured in a serious car accident. To the outside eye Lazar Perkov has everything -- indeed his friends and colleagues have even gone so far as to christen him with the nickname "Lucky." But appearances can sometimes be...

A simple story, but larger than life portrayal of the universal human saga represented through Dionis, a retiring biology professor, his wife and his fantasy of turning his unusual car collection into a museum in a small uneventful town.

In modern-day Macedonia, an East Indian gypsy Taip (Miki Manojlovic) becomes friends with UN peacekeeper Riju and introduces him to his life of squalor. When Taip's mother dies, he collects government money for the funeral -- but then she comes back to life.

At the breaking point of their dysfunctional marriage, Cass and Gav take a trip through Serbia. After meeting a mysterious local, Saint Peter, who eagerly offers to be their guide, the couple embarks on an impromptu sightseeing expedition that soon takes a series of sinister turns.

The arrival of the young teacher Damjan in one village in western Macedonia shakes the usual daily life of its inhabitants who belong to different religions.

An ailing communist reflects on a young boy childhood in Stalinist Yugoslavia.

What is like to be a widowed old man in a small town where every single day is the same like the previous? And what will happen when the grandson that man haven't seen in 10 years will knock on his door and suddenly brake all of his routines?

The story of this political thriller takes place in the 90s and follows one night of the life of the Deputy Minister Nikola and his wife Ana.

On the road where nobody knows him, Petar, a middle-aged truck driver, is free to be himself and live as he wants. However, when his son goes missing, he is determined to find him and bring him back, no matter the consequences.

The life of a young man struggling between the moral dilemmas, society where he lives, personal problems and the love of his life.

This film was made in 1998 and was dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the Exodus of the children from the Aegean part of Macedonia during the Greek Civil War. Using historical facts, archival material and actual film footage, the film tells the story of the genocide of the Macedonian people in this part of Macedonia. In the spring of 1948, over 28.000 Macedonian children left Greece and sought refuge across the border into the Vardar part of Macedonia and eventually into other countries such as Poland, Romania, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. The archival footage depicts the children leaving as well as showing film taken in both world wars.

Macedonian TV drama.

This is a time when we learn afresh that nothing lasts forever and that the variability is an integral part of everyday life. What is a river today does not mean that tomorrow will not become a sea. Life itself is one large metamorphosis, and the human being is its variable shape...

A group of friends unintentionally kidnap the Prime Minister of the country.