Year: 2026.
Runtime: 86’
Genre: Documentary
Production: Banana Film, Support Kochani
Director: Milčo Mančevski
Screenplay: Milčo Mančevski
Producers: Milčo Mančevski
Executive producers: Tatjana Kjurchinska Pepeljugoska, Ludovico Cantisani
Cinematography: Ivan Ivanovski
Editing: Mishko Chunihin
Music: Igor Vasilev Novogradsk
An unflinching meditation on grief and survival, Good People traces the aftermath of a nightclub fire in North Macedonia that claimed 63 young lives. With austere restraint, Manchevski renders survivors and quiet heroes not as symbols but as people, aching, enduring, and profoundly real. What begins as a reckoning with catastrophe becomes a study in resilience, a testament to the fragile but persistent power of hope. This documentary feature honors both the truth of lived experience and the spoken word in its raw form, revering speech as though it were literature itself. The latest work from Milcho Manchevski, one of Europe’s most distinctive cinematic voices acclaimed for Before the Rain, extends his lifelong dialogue between personal tragedy and collective memory. Good People is an intimate cinematic elegy of grief and endurance, subtly bringing together poetry and testimony.
Milcho Manchevski wrote and directed eight features, one feature documentary and numerous short forms, and has also authored books of photographs and fiction. His debut Before the Rain (1994), included on The New York Times’ list of the 1,000 best films ever made, won the Golden Lion in Venice, an Independent Spirit Award and an Academy Award nomination. He also directed, His work has been the subject of academic conferences. He served as head of Directing Studies at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, taught at EICTV in Cuba and VGIK in Russia, and is a member of the Directors Guild of America and European Film Academy. Dust ( which opened Venice 2001) Shadows, Mothers, Bikini Moon, Willow, Kaymak and Sister Brother Manhole Cover (2026), along with more than 50 short forms, including The End of Time (2017) Thursday (2013). His work has been the subject of numerous academic conferences. He was the Head of the Directing Department at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, taught at EICTV in Cuba and VGIK in Russia, and is a member of the Directors Guild of America and the European Film Academy.
