Documentary about Macedonian national team awarded at Milan film festival

A great ending to a truly inspiring story. Macedonian Radio Television (MRT) received the ‘Mention d’Honneur’ award at the 42nd Sports Movies and TV Film Festival in Milan for the documentary ‘Living the Dream’, which featured prominently the Macedonian men’s national volleyball team. The prestigious event in the north of Italy is organised by the Fédération Internationale Cinema Television Sportifs (FICTS) and is supported by the International Olympic Committee to promote culture, sport, fair play, and Olympic values and thereby create an Olympic legacy.

“Milan is the biggest stage on which we can appear with works from our profession. It is a world championship for sports documentaries, and we won an award in the Olympic values category, thus fulfilling our, and I hope, the mission of the organisers. I want to thank the President of FICTS, Professor Franco Ascani, who is a member of the IOC Commission for Culture and Olympic Heritage, as well as his team, because for the second year in a row they are awarding our films, last year for basketball, now for Volleyball,” said the director of ‘Living the dream’, Mr Toni Ristovski.

“At the film summit in Auditorium Testori, documentaries from Australia, USA, China, Japan, Italy, Germany were awarded. This shows that the festival really has the dimension of a world championship, and therefore our joy is great. We got a chance and successfully promoted Macedonian culture and Macedonian sport in Milan. I hope that our success will be an additional inspiration for the Macedonian players and for those responsible in Macedonian Volleyball to follow our path and be better than before,” said the screenwriter of the film, Toni Stojanovski.

‘Living the dream’ is a story about the bumpy road of the Macedonian volleyball players who, since 2019, have participated in the CEV EuroVolley three times in a row, which is a great success considering the circumstances. Macedonian Radio Television decided to produce this film to make their experience available to the general public.

“As a commentator of volleyball matches for the past decade and someone who was directly involved in the organisation of the CEV EuroVolley 2023 Men, which was co-hosted by Skopje, I wanted to promote the event as much as possible. That is why we made a new logo of the Federation, a promotional video, an anthem for Macedonian Volleyball, and we also made this film. The title came by itself, as it corresponded to the creed of the Macedonian men’s national team, with a slight modification from ‘Live your dreams’ to ‘Living the dream’. But ‘Mention d’Honneur’ in Milan has an even deeper meaning for me personally because my collaboration with the National Volleyball Federation ended recently, and this work is some kind of recognition for my modest participation in the successes mentioned in the film,” explains Stojanovski.

The sports documentary about the Red-and-Yellows previously won the award for the best long documentary film at the Budva festival in Montenegro and thus got the right to participate in the 42nd Sports Movies and TV Film Festival in Milan. For the tandem Toni and Toni, this is the fourth award in the past two years, and it shows that they are still ‘living the dream’ too.