“Manaki Brothers” Film Festival 2015

36th Annual “International Cinematographers’ Film Festival”

La Lettre AFC n°256

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The 36th annual “Manaki Brothers” festival will be held in Bitola (Republic of Macedonia) from 18-27 September 2015. Created by the Macedonian Film Professionals’ Association (MFPA) and the first ever international festival dedicated to the creativity of cinematographers, it will feature twelve sections this year, ranging from the official competition to short, student, and junior programmes.

Jaromir Šofr, Ryszard Lenczewsky, and Bozidar Nikolić, laureates of the “Lifetime Acheivement Award Golden Camera 300”

For the first time in the long history of this festival, three highly internationally-renowned authors will receive the festival’s most coveted prize. Cinematographers Jaromir Šofr, Ryszard Lenczewsky, and Bozidar Bota Nikolić will be induced into the Club of the Greats. Dimitar Nikolov, the festival’s director, explained why the three winners of the top prize were chosen when he announced the names of the laureates.

“This year, we have decided to award a prize to a cinematographer renowned for his exceptional contribution to the development of the cinematographic art and who is of Eastern or Central European origin. We decided on three great directors of photography whose contribution to the development of the æsthetics of cinema is immense and each of them, naturally, possesses his own signature and his unique visual style. We thought that the three of them are so important that we couldn’t choose just one. I think they are all worthy of receiving the highest recognition our festival awards, and we are especially happy that they are truly pleased to accept this Golden Camera 300 award for their entire body of work,” said Mr. Nikolov.

International Jury
The jury, presided by Polish cinematographer Ryszard Lenczewski, will be composed of Serbian cinematographer Bozidar-Bota Nikolic, the Canadian producer and festival organizer Hayet Benkara, the Turkish actor Ercan Kesal, and the Macedonian director and author Mitko Panov.

In competition for the Camera 300 Award
- Son of Saul, by Laszlo László, cinematography by Mátyás Erdély, HSC
- Umimachi Diary (Our Little Sister), by Hirokazu Kore-Eda, cinematography by Takimoto Mikiya
- Mia madre (My mother), by Nanni Moretti, cinematography by Arnaldo Catinari
- Sicario, by Denis Villeneuve, cinematography by Roger Deakins, BSC, ASC
- Anime nere (Black Souls), by Francesco Munzi, cinematography by Vladan Radovic
- Macbeth, by Justin Kurzel, cinematography by Adam Arkapaw
- Victoria, by Sebastian Schipper, cinematography by Sturia Brandth Grøvlen
- 600 Millas (600 Miles), by Gabriel Ripstein, cinematography by Alain Marcoen, SBC
- La tierra y la sombre (Land and Shade), by César Augusto Acevedo, cinematography by Mateo Guzmán
- Belye nochi pochtalona Alekseya Tryapitsyna (The Postman’s White Nights), by Andrei Konchalovsky, cinematography by Aleksandr Simonov.
- Timbuktu, by Abderrahmane Sissako, cinematography by Sofian El Fani
- Nie yinniang (The Assassin), by Hou Hsiao-hsien, cinematography by Mark Lee Ping-bin
- Nahid, by Ida Panahandeh, cinematography by Morteza Gheidi.

Of note, in the section entitled “Eye on Film”
- L’Ange du Nord (Angel of the North), by Sophie Blondy, cinematography by Nathalie Durand, AFC.

The Manaki Brothers
An exposition of photographs of the so-called Eastern Front during the First World War taken by brothers Janaki (1878-1954) and Milton (1880-1964) Manaki will be on display at the Mémorial de Caen (Calvados, France) in January 2016.

  • Read “Trésor de guerre”, an article, in French, on the history of these photographs published in M Le magazine du Monde on Saturday, 23 May 2015, on the website of the Embassy of France in Skopje (Republic of Macedonia).

(Translated from French by Alex Raiffe)