The Third Half ( ) is a 2012 Macedonian film directed by Darko Mitrevski. It deals with Macedonian football during World War II and the deportation of Jews from Macedonia. It is a story of love during wartime and a country's passion for football. The government of Macedonia considered the film of national interest and funded it with one million euros. "The Third Half" was selected as the Macedonian entry for Best Foreign Language at the 85th Academy Awards.
Plot.
The film is set in what is today North Macedonia, then part of the Vardar Banovina, a province in Kingdom Yugoslavia, and follows the period shortly after the Tripartite Pact invasion of the region. In 1941, a young football player from Macedonia, Kosta, and a wealthy young Jewish woman, Rebecca, fall in love, despite her father's effort to keep them apart. With the war raging around their borders, the Macedonians remain cocooned in their world of patriotic pleasures, primarily concerned about getting the beleaguered Macedonia Football Club on a winning streak. Their manager hires the legendary German-Jewish coach Rudolph Spitz to turn them into champions. However, when the Nazi occupation begins and they start deporting Jews, Kosta and his teammates realize that the carefree days of their youth are over. As the Nazis try to sabotage the outcome of the championship game, and Spitz's life is threatened, Kosta and his teammates rise to the challenge to protect their coach, with all of Macedonia cheering them on.
Background.
"The Third Half" depicts the history of 7,148 Macedonian Jews who were deported to the gas chambers of Treblinka by the Bulgarian administrative and military authorities, who were cooperating with the Nazi regime. In February 1943, Bulgaria and Germany signed an agreement stipulating the deportation of Bulgarian Jews to camps in Poland. In March 1943, Bulgarian police rounded up the Jews of Thrace and Macedonia at night and placed them in detention camps under extremely harsh conditions. Their property and their houses were confiscated prior to their deportation in late March. Sealed trains transported 11,384 Jews, mainly via the Danube River, to death camps, from which almost none returned. The film was inspired by the true story of the FC Macedonia football team. The film is based also on an interview with the Shoah Foundation on that story given in 1998 by Neta Cohen, a Macedonian Holocaust survivor. The Jewish coach of FC Macedonia Illés Spitz who is also a Macedonian Holocaust survivor was rescued by the Bulgarian club's managers.
Production.
The film was supported by the Macedonian Film Fund, the Holocaust Fund of the Jews from Macedonia, the Jewish Community of Macedonia, the Czech State Fund and the then Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski. It was declared a film of national interest by the Macedonian Government. The film was shot in Skopje, Bitola and Ohrid. Filming took place between September 10 and October 27, 2011.
Reception.
Writing for Cineuropa, Vladan Petković stated that "The Third Half" was the most ambitious Macedonian film since "Before the Rain" (1994). He went on to praise the setting, lauding the director for managing to "put together all the complicated details of the period and the geopolitical situation". Petković highlighted Sammel's acting as the strongest and dubbed it "the real emotional anchor of the film". At Bitola's 33rd Manaki Brothers film festival, it received a standing ovation.
The film was selected as the Macedonian entry for the Best Foreign Language Oscar at the 85th Academy Awards, but it did not make the final cut for nomination.
Controversy.
Evgeni Kirilov, Andrey Kovatchev and Stanimir Ilchev—Bulgarian members of the European Parliament—expressed outrage over the film and called upon European Commissioner for Enlargement Štefan Füle to reprove the Republic of Macedonia over the film. They claimed the film was an "attempt to manipulate Balkan history" and "spread hate" on the part of the Republic of Macedonia against its neighbors. The director of the film denied the accusations; he described the objections to the film as an example of Holocaust denial.
In late November 2011, the Macedonian media alleged that Member of the European Parliament Doris Pack, of Germany, dismissed the Bulgarian politicians' criticism of the film. Subsequently, in an extraordinary meeting of the EU Committee on Foreign Affairs attended by the Foreign Minister of the Republic of Macedonia, Doris Pack denied this allegation.
In the 2021 documentary, "The Last Half", Bulgarian director Stepan Polyakov has argued that the screenplay of the film "The Third Half" differs significantly from the real events Mitrevski claims to reflect, and it even openly manipulates them.
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References.
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