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North Macedonia’s Oscar© 2020 Entry for Best International Feature: ‘Willow’ by Milcho Manchevski

I watched Willow since I loved Manchevski’s Before The Rain; he has such a cinematic sense and is primary preoccupation — how things…

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Producer Jane Kortoshev explains the vital role of the landscape around the city of Prilep, in Milcho Manchevski’s feature Willow, a tale of love, trust and motherhood over the centuries. A willow tree bends without ever breaking, tying together three stories set in North Macedonia. In the first tale, a medieval couple hopes for a child through rituals, prayers and sacrifices. The Prilep Area is one of the finalists of the Eufcn Location Award, the annual prize for European film locations organized by the European Film Commissions Network (Eufcn) in collaboration with Cineuropa. The location was submitted by the North Macedonia Film Agency. Producer Jane Kortoshev explains the vital role of the landscape around the city of Prilep, in Milcho Manchevski’s feature film Vrba (Willow), a tale of love, trust and motherhood over centuries. The nearly deserted Mariovo plateau once bustled with life. Abandoned stone houses are all that remains.

Exclusive: Paris-based Reel Suspects has picked up sales rights to well-received Rome Film Festival drama Willow (Vrba) by Macedonian writer-director and festival favourite Milcho Manchevski.

The film is the last from the late UK producer Nik Powell (The Crying Game) who served as an executive on the feature.

New York-based Manchevski, whose acclaimed debut Before The Rain was Oscar-nominated in 1994, returns to his native Macedonia to tell the story of three women yearning for motherhood. The three stories – one medieval, two contemporary – explore themes of tradition, love, trust and female agency.

Matteo Lovadina’s Reel Suspects will take the film to UniFrance’s Rendez-Vous event in Paris next week and then on to the European Film Market in Berlin. The firm has world sales rights other than former Yugoslavia, Albania, Hungary and Belgium.

Manchevski produces with Jane Kortoshev and it was made in association with Powell’s Scala Productions. The...

Three women yearn for motherhood in Willow (Vrba), a film whose sensuous images and interpenetrating time periods bring to mind Milcho Manchevski’s memorable 1994 Venice Golden Lion winner Before the Rain. Here the Macedonian director (now a long-time New Yorker) returns to his roots, recounting an age-old drama through his country’s society and folklore. The time frame jumps from the Middle Ages to the present day, yet the topic of maternity is timely and universal. It feels a little cerebral at times, but should hit the spot with upscale audiences after its bow at the Rome Film Fest.

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