Two short movies by Macedonian directors, The End of Time by Milco Mancevski and Éclair by Marko Gjokovic, have been picked for the official program to vie for prizes at the Nancy International Film Festival in France, set to take place on August 25-September 3.
Mancevski's latest work, a Cuban-American production, has been selected in the competition program for experimental films, which will be introduced for the first time this year, MIA reports from Paris.
"The End of Time is a movie that can be easily screened in a museum or a gallery instead of a movie theater. In it, I keep on inspecting the crossroad where truth and story entwine, collide and overlap, this time in a minimalist fashion," Mancevski has stated.
Shot in San Antonio de los Baños, Cuba, the short film was finished in New York and Macedonia. The End of Time is considered one of the first American-Cuban co-productions after the two countries have started mending their strained relations.
The second short film from Macedonia, Éclair, tells the story of the son of a chef employed to cook at Josip Broz Tito's villa in Ohrid when he gets the chance for the first time in ten years to taste the food he cannot even touch let alone eat it.
Of 2,352 short films submitted to the festival, close to 70 have been selected to compete in the main program.
The International Film Festival in Nancy is chaired by Macedonian journalist Toni Glamcevski since 2013. "It gives me pleasure that Macedonian films have been selected for the first time in the festival's 23-year history to compete in the short film category," he told MIA.
In addition to short films, the festival features a total of 150 movies, including features and documentaries.
The main focus of the festival this year is Latin America and populism.
