Tokyo: Milcho Manchevski on his Competition Film, Blacklisting and the Ills of Neo-Social Realism

Milcho Manchevski has returned to the Tokyo International Film Festival with *Sister Brother Manhole Cover*, a dark comedy about a sister and brother whose bond sits alongside themes of motherhood and economic inequality. He says the film grew from Macedonian folk songs about sibling devotion and his concern that the widening wealth gap will increasingly shape society.

Manchevski argues that “neo-social realism” can reduce filmmaking to delivering a message, while film funds and festivals may encourage that approach. Drawing on his experience of growing up in Yugoslavia, where films could be censored or banned as power and opinions shifted, he also criticises judging films by a filmmaker’s identity or political context rather than by the work itself. The article notes that his earlier film *Before the Rain* won Venice’s Golden Lion and received an Oscar nomination.