By Mark Worth – Southeast Europe Coalition on Whistleblower Protection
Milcho Manchevski is accustomed to walking down red carpets. Over his 30-year career, the Macedonian director and writer has been nominated for an Academy Award, won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, and was named best director at Raindance. At its world premiere, his latest work Kaymak was nominated for best film at the 2022 Tokyo International Film Festival.
In his home country, however, red carpets have been replaced by rocky roads.
Manchevski says he is being targeted for retaliation because he exposed financial irregularities and conflicts of interest within North Macedonia’s Film Agency. Ironically, this is very public agency that helped Manchevski produce his classic 1994 debut, Before the Rain, which made him a star overnight and gave Macedonia its first-ever Oscar nomination.
Manchevski says he has uncovered a network of public officials, political party leaders and film executives that relies on corruption and persecution to control and rig the public financing of films.
“I learned about the structure of what happens inside the government and the film mafia: major kickbacks for every single project, fixed competitions, and state funds going to projects that do not deserve it by any criteria,” says Manchevski. “The kickbacks are usually 30 percent. They share the money with high-up people in political parties.”
Finally, after many years of collecting and broadcasting evidence of perpetual misconduct, Manchevski’s efforts are starting to pay off. His reports have been substantiated by the Ministry of Culture, State Audit Office, and State Commission for Prevention of Corruption (SCPC), as well as by prominent Berlin-based NGO Transparency International (TI). The “illegality and conflict of interest still persist,” TI has concluded.
According to Sloboden Pecat (Free Press), the Ministry of Culture discovered the Film Agency gave its cronies €800,000 for 39 movies that were never made. And, the cronies kept the money with the help of falsified documents. The Ministry also found contract awards were rigged by people with conflicts of interest, and that the Agency was making illegal payments to the Society of Filmmakers of Macedonia for years.
In November 2023 the SCPC called for the dismissal of Film Agency Director Bojan Lazarevski and filed criminal charges against him. Lazarevski and the Agency’s were the driving force behind the persecution of Manchevski. Lazarevski was dismissed soon after.
The Ministry’s findings prove what Manchevski has been saying for years about corruption at the Film Agency. It also proves the legal action against Manchevski is retaliatory because he successfully exposed what he calls the country’s “film mafia.” The Southeast Europe Coalition on Whistleblower Protection has alerted embassies, EU officials and the media about these scandals.
As further evidence of retaliation, the SCPC and other public institutions found no misconduct by Manchevski’s company Banana Film. Former Film Agency officials falsely accused the company of financial irregularities from many years ago, which is classic whistleblower retaliation tactic. Yet, the criminal complaint filed against Manchevski by former agency officials is frozen in time. The Whistleblower Coalition has received no response from the Public Prosecutor’s Office, despite several requests for information on why complaint has not been thrown out.
National Icon Treated as Common Criminal
Manchevski is a household name in North Macedonia and prominent internationally. His films have won 90 awards, and have been distributed in more than 100 countries and screened at more than 350 festivals. He holds an honorary doctorate and has taught at film schools in Europe, Asia and the US. He has published essays, exhibited his photography and directed music videos. He’s been good for the Macedonian economy, bringing in €17 million in foreign investment to the country’s film industry.
Despite his stature, Manchevski says he is being treated like a common criminal. The Film Agency convinced the Culture Ministry to investigate his finances, going back many years to probe long-finished films. Even though no problems were found, the agency filed a criminal complaint against him. The Southeast Europe Coalition on Whistleblower Protection attempted to reach agency officials for an interview, but they have not responded.
This was just the beginning. Manchevski said the Film Agency is refusing to sign a contract for an ongoing film production that it already approved. And he said the agency is refusing to provide agreed-upon €140,000 in funding for the completed Kaymak, which the Culture Ministry said is illegal. Following its own investigation, TI determined the agency’s actions to be “vengeful.” The Southeast Europe Coalition has been advocating for all actions against Manchevski to stop and the funds he is owed to be paid in full.
Manchevski says his recent films have received less funding than those made by first-time directors, he says. “All my films receive less money from the Macedonian government than the sons of Macedonian directors, police chiefs and former government spokesmen.”
Media outlets controlled by the former ruling Social Democratic Union party (SDSM) have orchestrated a months-long smear campaign that he says is “brimming with lies and slander.”
“This has been disappointing but not surprising. I knew they would try things but I didn’t think they would be so unscrupulous,” he said. “Filmmakers are scared. If this sort of persecution can happen to me, who has significant international credentials, what should the younger or less prominent filmmakers expect? They fear for their careers and livelihoods.”
Portions of this article previously were published by the Southeast Europe Coalition for Whistleblower Protection, with support from the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington, DC.
