Writer / director Milcho Manchevski, whose “Before the Rain” won over 30 awards, including the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1994, and the Independent Spirit Award and the Academy-Award nomination the following year, has crafted a hypnotic journey into the heart of our archaic, elemental needs and emotions colored by a chilling sense of foreboding. His new film is called Shadows…

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What’s the Movie About: If we were to choose one man who’s got everything going for him, then Lazar Perkov would be an excellent choice. He’s young, good-looking, has a beautiful wife, a lovely little boy, a great house and a good job as a hospital physician. In fact, everyone calls him “Lucky.” Nothing’s missing – except maybe Lucky himself, who’s always trying to live up to the expectations of others. Like his bored wife and roguish colleagues. And, above all, his famous physician mother, a driven woman who rose from obscurity to renown with an iron will that crushed all resistance, whether from the living or the dead...

When Lucky is involved in a disastrous car crash and is mysteriously saved from sure death, his life begins to change. He meets strange people: an old man with a baby, an ancient lady speaking a forgotten dialect, a beautiful young woman with a sad secret… Their only message is: “Return what’s not yours. Have respect.” He gradually becomes aware that it is a message from the afterlife, from tormented souls who seem to die over and over again. But why have they chosen him? To answer this question, Lucky must finally grow up and become the man he wants to be…

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Commentaries from Milcho Manchevski

SHADOWS is a film about sex and death, and a few important things in between. It is an old-fashioned, slow-burn of a film. SHADOWS is in many ways my most personal film to date, a story of what happens if Lady Macbeth had lived today and survived to have a grown-up son. This man, Lazar, would try to come to terms with her overbearing presence and her transgressions of the past. It is scary, but it offers no cheap thrills, sound bites nor easy solutions. It is about a man trying to have a dialogue with the dead, and becoming more alive for that experience.

That’s one of the themes of SHADOWS - how parents sometimes hide behind their professed love for the child, while being too suffocating, overwhelming, selfish. The power of the Macedonian mother in this matriarchal society is huge. Lazar’s mother is what Lady Macbeth would have been like, had she lived to have an adult child. Lazar seems to struggle between four tough women: his mother, his wife, Menka and his neighbour.

There is a lot of sexual tension in the movie … Sex – good. Hypocrisy – bad. Sex contains in itself both life and death. Because of the way society treats it, turning it into a taboo, being hypocritical, having a low threshold of tolerance for things sexual – sex ends up holding strong attraction for a lot of artists.

[ Director Milcho Manchevski official website ] [ Official Movie site ]

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