Country: North Macedonia
Year: 2026
Duration: 86'
On a night in March 2025, a fire broke out at the illegal Puls nightclub in Kočani, North Macedonia, claiming 63 lives. A month after the tragedy, filmmaker Milcho Manchevski travelled to the town to record the testimonies of survivors, clubgoers and impromptu rescuers driven by the desire to save friends and family members or help those trapped inside. Their words convey the disaster in its most intimate dimensions, transforming accounts of the events into a universal meditation on grief, death, good and evil.
Biography
film director
Milcho Manchevski
(Macedonia) is a filmmaker, screenwriter and visual artist. His feature debut, Before the Rain (1994), won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and is regarded as one of the most important feature debuts in cinema history. He has directed eight narrative features, including Dust (2001), which opened the Venice Film Festival, Shadows (2007), Mothers (2010), Bikini Moon (2017), Willow (2019), Kaymak (2022) and Sister Brother Manhole Cover (2026), as well as numerous short films and other short-form works. He has also published books of photography, fiction and nonfiction, and created performance art. His films, distinguished by their exploration of the relationships between space, time and emotion, have received awards at international festivals. Good People is his latest documentary.
FILMOGRAFIA
Opasna baba (cm, 1985), Pred doždot (Prima della pioggia, 1994), Dust (2001), The Wire (ep. serie tv, 2002), Senki (Shadows, 2007), Macedonia Timeless (doc, cm, 2008), Majki (Mothers, 2010), Thursday (cm, 2013), Venice 70: Future Reloaded (ep., 2013), The End of Time (cm, 2017), Bikini Moon (2017), Willow (2019), Kaymak (2022), Good People (doc, 2026).
Declaration
film director
“As filmmakers, we are trained to manipulate the cinematic material, but I decided that we should take a back seat to the words of the good people. We applied a spartan, ascetic, minimalist technique, something that would keep the viewer as close as possible to the lived experience. We offered a platform, carefully arranged the testimonials in chronological order leading to an emotional crescendo, and let the truth and the people speak for themselves. This film is like a book.”
Cast
& Credits
DIRECTOR, SCREENPLAY: Milcho Manchevski. CINEMATOGRAPHY: Ivan Ivanovski. EDITING: Mishko Chunihin. MUSIC: Igor Vasilev Novogradska. PRODUCER: Milcho Manchevski for Banana Film. CONTACT: Misko Cunihin - mcunihin@gmail.com
