Discoveries from Macedonia World Cinema

Complicated life of three brothers.

A young man with a successful professional and private life dreams of being the exact opposite of who he is.

N.E.P. or The Stones God Threw on the Barricades was made as an independent project by TV Bordoshbagn for A1 Independent Television in Skopje. The film is of an undefined genre and speaks about the Third World lies, which renowned 'well-intentioned' missionaries, founders of certain foundations and institutes, have promoted in the countries of the former socialist regime, especially in Eastern Europe. This project is an outsider's look at the paradox about the secret beauty of power and the submission to that power. N.E.P. is a video reflection on the aesthetics of the transformation of power, looked at from the point of view of the ordinary man in the so-called transitional countries who, after five years of living in 'freedom' still can't understand why the most democratic system of them all – parliamentary democracy – is better than the one before.

Ana, a 15 year old girl, replaces the SIM card from her phone, with that of her late grandfather. She starts pranking her family by sending them messages, using his number. But the seemingly naive joke turns against Ana.

The film Obozenie is in the form of a triptych and consists of the parts Catharsis, Wingless and Ascension. The film follows the stories of characters who while fighting to survive, revive the lost spirituality in them and in the people around them.

A short documentary depicting a broad historical picture of the Roma - from their origins and journey from India more than a thousand years ago, to their life today in the Balkans and Macedonia.

A documentary about migration.

A short student film.

This documentary film is dedicated to the actor, civil rights fighter and activist Stojan Velkov- Thorn. The film covers several phases of his life, but the most important is the psychological cross-section of his inner world, the spiritual struggle that in one part will turn into a merciless fight against common evil. The film is divided into five parts: Earth, Silence, Theater, Rebellion and Home.

A documentary film dedicated to the Macedonian holiday "Ilinden". A special look at the traditional cavalry march organized on the occasion of the celebration of "Mechkin Kamen". The ceremonies at the start of the march, the places where the cavalry moves and statements by the participants for whom this holiday is synonymous with defiance, feat and dignity of the Macedonian struggle for independence and statehood.

A fictional depiction of an ancient pagan custom for healing a sick child in the region of Kriva Palanka.

A documentary film that divs into the unknown world that hasn't been discovered so far - the closed world of the traditional Albanian woman in Macedonia, especially the woman who lives in the Albanian villages, located just few kilometers from Skopje, the capital of Macedonia, but, at the same time, located in the core of the Macedonian drug channel that spread drugs all over Europe.

A tv adaptation of the theatre play with same name where the two main characters are lost in the main warfare chaos. The crucial question is whether they are in or out of the front line. Are they living creatures or ghosts? Are they brothers or not?

This documentary is a portrait of Roza Mojsovska, a physically disabled young woman. Roza has been almost completely alone since she was very young, but has not given up her struggle for happiness. She writes poetry, paints pictures holding a brush in her mouth, uses a computer and studies foreign languages. And an important part of her life is her faith. It prevents her from sinking into despair, something which pulls strongly at her in the isolated world of the hospital.

A film about a nation held hostage because of its name. That nation is the Republic of Macedonia and her people.

At the age of eighteen, Goran arrives in Italy from Macedonia. In no time he wins the trust of many Barolo wine producers and begins providing them with labour. The Macedonian labourers call him “the Cowboy”. Today he lives in Govone where he rents and shares a modest farmhouse with his girlfriend Antoaneta. He is worried because everything is starting to go wrong after years of doing well, maybe it’s becoming a little too much for a Macedonian living in Italy. When there seems to be no way out, he decides to embark on a journey backwards, towards east, towards home. But Macedonia also seems to reject him.

Jacob believed he was a good man. Believed. After a long day at work, tired and frustrated Jacob drives his car home. He accidentally hits a person on a bicycle with his vehicle. Due to shock and panic, decides to flee the scene...

Young married couple are moving in a new flat. They try to drop everyday monotony by buying a magic box which introduces them to tv-simulacrum.

Short avant-garde video.

The story and the characters are fictional. The movie is about the violence and the crime within a city; a city run by a group of gangsters. Killings, violence and drugs are some of the characteristics of this city, whose fate is in a gangster's hands. But, in the mean time we have the good in it, the good that is making Trim leave this gang. It's Trim's love, Ana. Trim's main challenge is to make it out of this city and live free.

Saban Sejdiu is a wrestler, champion, and four-time Olympian. He is one of our greatest and most successful athletes in Macedonia. A sports story showing us the life path of a small child from Skopje who conquered the world with his complete dedication to wrestling.

This movie depicts two distant worlds that are almost untouchable. One is a world of Balkan countries where professionals are negligent, stubborn and unreliable. The other is a world of “unbearable routine and pose of the Borganism of the European administration”. Those who receive European money can hardly cope with the administrative obligations required of them. Those on the other side cannot stand the casual attitude of the beneficiaries. What is it that the EU really wants us to change so that we can become the part of the “European family”? This film answers this question through a moving personal story. It’s the personal story of all of us.

The nails society constructs. The sound of hummer raises the City of Nails. A hole is opened in the ground. Huge fluid mass overflows the city. The fluid shapes as humans. The humans interfere with the construction. The nails building ideology is disturbed. The nails have to nail the humans.

On the night of May 10, 1998, 18-year-old Toni Mandza escaped from prison in order to kill all the people from his hit list. Gevgelija, a quiet small town in southern Macedonia is suddenly not so quiet any more.

Flora, a journalist in a Western country, comes to her homeland to trace the early life/identity of Mother Teresa or Anjeza Gonxhe Bojaxhiu, to produce a feature. But soon she will face the surprise of her own identity. Two different lives, in search of their identities, so badly effected by the past, during the communist system.

We went in search of the graves of the Macedonian vojvodas to remember their maxims. Their voice is very strong if there is someone to hear it... Only in the Macedonian language and in Macedonia the term "vojvoda" has a single meaning - a strong man, brave, leader of a rebel group or company during the time of Turkish slavery.

The story is about a deaf child named Najden and his mother Nevena (Snežana Koneska - Rusi). The journalist (Magdalena Rizova) wants to make a documentary about Najden.

In a small monastery, hidden in the rocky mountains along a lake far from civilization, a lonesome young monk paints frescoes of saints on the walls. On a quiet sunny day, while fishing in his small rowboat in the middle of the lake, he suddenly hears female voices. Is he being tempted? Is his conscience being tested?

Act presents some of the main historical styles in European painting of the naked human figure. Changes in the styles of painting the naked human figure are presented, from baroque and rococo through classicism, romanticism, realism, impressionism, modernism and post-modernism. There is no conventional narration in this animated movie; instead the plot is inspired by the history of European painting as seen and practiced by an artist—the author of this animated movie.

Round Trip: Mary is the second part of the Round Trip trilogy. A young cowgirl in a small village is rounding up her cattle and preparing herself for a trip to the town. On her way there she meets different people in different situations. In the town she is attracted by the cinema and the film posters and enters a cinema for the first time…

Аn old lady is being closely watched by a young man, who actually acts like a caring one. Later on, he meets an ordinary thief and asks him to break in the old lady's apartment. He manages to convince the thief to do the theft even though the latter expressed his unwillingness. After a week, the thief manages to do the evil act. Soon after that, the old lady gets ill. The thief finds himself in a situation of making a life-changing DECISION.

A city traumatized by an outrageously overpriced renovation project executed by a now ex-government regime designed to shape a perverted hybrid identity and promote ethnic division in a multicultural community and profit from it, enormously. In the midst of that disturbing unfamiliarity that was once familiar, the remaining of a home that is changing, the narrator talks about the last day in the battle for the life of a loved one.

Cultural Worker 3 in 1 is a documentary film about the role of the left-oriented independent cultural-artistic scene and cultural workers in the region of ex-Yugoslavia. Following the life and work of several characters in four cities of former Yugoslavia the film explores two issues – what it means to be a cultural worker in post-socialist contexts of Skopje, Belgrade, Zagreb and Ljubljana, and what the possibilities for action and intervention in social reality are, from the position of art and culture. In this way, the film reflects on actual tendencies and problematics at the critical independent cultural scenes, as well as on relations between art, theory and activism, which are strongly present in the region.

A portrait of a Bektashi Muslim matriarch and her hard-working family shows gender equality blooming where least expected - in a rural community of pious Muslims devoted to family and tradition in a tobacco-growing village in the Balkans.

Witchcraft versus bravery. A dark fantasy tale set in the universe of the classic fairytale by Brothers Grimm.

Fantastic love between two billboards...

A girl spaces out during a conversation with her coworker, leading to an overblown misunderstanding.

A community of people with disabilities are one of the first users of the long-opposed process of deinstitutionalization in the country. Among them is Marica, born and raised in an institution, yearning to see her mother again.

A TV movie that happens during a New Year’s Eve…

Today is a special day. Alex has a photo session scheduled with Maria, the girl he loves. But an invisible man enters in his apartment and makes him nervous, thinking he has lost his mind. Alex can't stop thinking about it, and his relationship with Maria gets more tense. Who is the invisible man, and will Alex be able to win back Maria's affection?

This a documentary about the TAT pyramid scheme, a major banking scandal that rocked the city of Bitola and blighted the lives of many savers from Macedonia and abroad. In their efforts to recover the money they lost in the pyramid scheme, savers suffered many personal and family dramas—in some cases even suicide and murder as a result of unsettled credit-debt accounts. Tragically, the consequences are still being addressed and might never be overcome. The documentary revives this issue at a time when many living witnesses are speaking openly about what happened in TAT and about who the main perpetrators were. Some of the surviving victims give their own statements, which is a rarity in documentaries. One of the goals of the film is for the truth about TAT to come to light.

A love melodrama that follows the lives of four grown people, their professions, emotional and social problems.

A broken man disappointed by his wife, his friends and the whole world around him, decides to leave civilization and live in the wilderness. In the forest he makes an unexpected new friend – a snakelet.

Arban is a 12-13-year-old boy who falls in love with a young and attractive salesgirl called Aida who works opposite his father’s business where Arban often goes to help out. But Aida has no intention of attracting the young teenager, and Arban’s love leads to fierce jealousy of anyone close to Aida, as well as against his own father, Luan. Luan’s business is going well, but to increase the number of his customers Luan secretly goes out every night to throw nails on the streets. Arban discovers this by accident and suspects his father is going to see the beautiful Aida. One day his father falls into his own trap and has an accident. He spends six months in hospital, and after this Luan decides to follow the right path...

Haunted by professional rejection and obsessive self-improvement routines, a young artist faces a raw internal confrontation with societal pressures during a crowded exhibition opening in Skopje.

A self-reflection film meant to show the many struggles of the day-to-day life of an author who has struggled their whole life with writing.

Accompanied by his wife, an aging music professor travels to his picturesque childhood hometown in order to collect his nerves after a tragic breakdown. However, upon the couple's return, nostalgic memories of all kind will trigger an equal amount of tension and happyness, with the idyllic circumstances turning more and more fragile and reaching a breaking point upon the arrival of Maša, the professor's estranged daughter from his first marriage.

A low budget musical comedy created to present Macedonian folk songs.

Lazy and irresponsible office secretary works for a flamboyant boss that has tendency to cheat on his wife. It's a job-interview day at the office, and the two of them create a confusion with fatal consequences.

A 13 minute animated film about different shapes

A psychotic girl kills the boyfriend whom she thought she loved.

This documentary aims with its visual and suggestive power to open the screen to a warm real-life story of the little boy Dragan and his sounds in the silence. This is a story that touches every segment of the rational side of life, a sum of fragments that captivate with their essence.

A film about the members of the USKA-KAN trumpet orchestra from Berovo. Uskata is a middle-aged man who lives with his family in a Roma settlement. He talks about his love and talent for music. Together with his son, they play the trumpet and practice constantly. They find inspiration in world-famous jazz performers, such as Louis Armstrong. Together with their orchestra, they participate in festivals and are winners of awards for the best trumpet orchestra.

A documentary that deals with the topic of migration and migrant workers. This topic is explained through the people who are interviewed. Among the interviewees is muslim priest, a French researcher who talks about Albanian emigrants and migrant workers, and four migrant workers who are pensioners.

Traditions, distance, migration, language, and traditional customs will make up the mosaic of this documentary film which will present a concrete reality with the means of expression of the film.

A film about the life and work of the Macedonian dissident Dragan Bogdanovski, one of the most famous Macedonian political emigrants after 1945. His contemporaries speak about Dragan Bogdanovski, as well as documents, daily press, and photographs. The film uses both live action sequences and authentic footage of Bogdanovski (audio and video).

Desanka is a young woman sitting alone in a tavern and is visibly sad. Ljubinko comes and sits next to her to keep her company. The two of them start a conversation. Desanka tells him why she is crying. She is lonely and looking for true love. Ljubinko tries to cheer her up. Ljubinko and Desanka are joined by August, or as he calls himself "Stupid August". He makes Desanka laugh even more. Then the waiter joins them. The conversations last a long time.

A girl, through her memories, relives her childhood, wearing pieces of it as part of herself. Each transformation brings her closer to an honest confrontation with herself. Throughout this journey, restlessness and silence, fragility and strength intertwine. In the end, she discovers that peace is not found in escape, but in acceptance.

A short film that takes us into the life of a collector of cardboard waste.

A story about love, war, the Holocaust, but also a legacy - Let it not be forgotten, and as Roza says: "And I only hope that one day, when people will pass by that house in Bitola where Beno and I met, and where Estreja and Jamila and Adela and all of us made plans for our future, one day, people will know about some very brave young people from Macedonia and what we did for our city and for our people."