Milcho Manchevski, the Macedonian director who won the Venice Film Festival's Golden Lion in 1994 for "Before the Rain," will premiere his new feature "Sister Brother Manhole Cover" at the Tokyo International Film Festival, with a first trailer released alongside the announcement.
Rome-based Coccinelle Film Sales, led by Francesca Breccia, is handling worldwide rights and will begin selling the film to international buyers at the Tokyo market. The company confirmed the premiere and the trailer debut.
Tokyo slots the film into a competition lineup that also includes new titles from Indonesian director Garin Nugroho, Japanese filmmaker Mishima Yukiko, and Chinese documentarian Qiu Jiongjiong, among 15 total competition entries.
Manchevski's Golden Lion win three decades ago made him the first Macedonian director to take Venice's top prize, for a film that wove together three interlocking stories set across London and the Balkans. He has since directed features including "Dust," "Shadows," and "Bikini Moon," and has worked steadily in both fiction and documentary.
The title "Sister Brother Manhole Cover" is Manchevski's own, and the film arrives at a moment when Balkan cinema has drawn renewed festival attention. Manchevski has long worked between Skopje, New York, and Western Europe, and his films frequently return to themes of displacement and memory.
Tokyo's competition section carries a first-prize award and serves as a launchpad for Asian and European titles seeking distribution in Japan and beyond. A world premiere at the festival gives Coccinelle a first look at buyer interest before the film moves to other markets.
Breccia's Coccinelle has built a catalog of European art-house titles and specializes in matching festival films with distributors in territories where auteur cinema still draws theatrical audiences. The company's sales push begins with the Tokyo market, which runs alongside the festival.
No release date for "Sister Brother Manhole Cover" outside the festival circuit has been announced. The Tokyo International Film Festival is scheduled to run its competition screenings through the fall.
