Manchevski’s Blocked Film Enters Tokyo Competition — SkimNews
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- Sister Brother Manhole Cover enters competition at the Tokyo International Film Festival after being blocked for years following financing; it is Manchevski’s fourth festival appearance, following “Kaymak” in competition in 2022.
- Manchevski follows Malina and Viktor, who sell pilfered bronze busts and manhole covers; after Viktor is seriously hurt, Malina seeks help from a crooked doctor and the siblings shelter with his blind mother, Todora.
- Sister Brother Manhole Cover draws on traditional Macedonian songs about sibling love, while Manchevski says he wants flawed, contradictory characters rather than idealized figures whose behavior dictates the moral.
- Manchevski says poverty is “painful and dehumanizing” and must not be romanticized; he interprets the busts as values society claims to honor while abandoning Malina and Viktor, and the manhole covers as infrastructure concealing society’s ugliness.
- Manchevski says he reported alleged corruption in 2020 and 2022, after which political harassment, a media smear campaign and criminal proceedings followed; the project received approval in 2023.
- Manchevski says he won two court cases against the Film Agency, with the State Commission for Prevention of Corruption and the State Audit Office confirming his account; Venice Film Festival, Whistleblowing International and Transparency International supported him.
- Sister Brother Manhole Cover is a six-country co-production spanning North Macedonia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Albania, Italy and the U.K.; Manchevski shot it alongside “Good People,” a documentary about those affected by the Kočani nightclub fire.
Why it matters: For Manchevski and his six-country co-production team, two court victories and confirmations from two state oversight bodies give his corruption allegations institutional weight. The years-long blockage shows political interference delaying an already financed production; Tokyo competition now provides a festival platform for the film.
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