Before the Rain

The first film made in the newly independent Republic of Macedonia, Milcho Manchevski's this gripping triptych of love and violence crosscuts the stories of an orthodox Christian monk (Gregoire Colin), a British photo agent (Katrin Cartlidge), and a native Macedonian war photographer (Rade Serbedzija) to paint a portrait of simmering ethnic and religious hatred about to reach its boiling point. Made during the strife of the war-torn Balkan states in the nineties, BEFORE THE RAIN is a timeless evocation of the loss of pastoral innocence, and remains one of recent cinema's most powerful laments on the futility of war.