Embrace the Darkness: A Conversation with Leon Ristov on Nikola, Nikola

I recently had the good fortune to screen Macedonian writer-director Leon Ristov’s short film Nikola, Nikola, which had its World Premiere in June at the IN THE PALACE International Short Film Festival in Sofia, Bulgaria. Nikola, Nikola centers on Nikola, a gay teenager in Skopje, North Macedonia, who slips out of his mother’s apartment for a late-night Grindr hookup with a much older man. Their conversation is cagey and evasive, and the older man’s unclear intentions make Nikola increasingly uneasy...