Labina Mitevska

Set in the quaint town of Veles, three sisters long to escape the suffocating environment of their dying community. Burdened by memories of their late father, each chooses a different path. A contemporary story of urban decay, this film's stark realism blends with memorable performances to depict the vivid landscape of post-Communist Macedonia.

A Macedonian woman throws herself into a traditionally men-only ceremony, kicking up a ruckus and standing her ground.

The first film made in the newly independent Republic of Macedonia, Milcho Manchevski’s BEFORE THE RAIN crosscuts the stories of an orthodox Christian monk (Grégoire Colin), a British photo agent (Katrin Cartlidge), and a native Macedonian war photographer (Rade Šerbedžija) to paint a portrait of simmering ethnic and religious hatred about to reach its boiling point. Made during the strife of the war-torn Balkan states in the nineties, this gripping triptych of love and violence is also a timeless evocation of the loss of pastoral innocence, and remains one of recent cinema’s most powerful laments on the futility of war.