Bitola will welcome one of the world’s most acclaimed cinematographers, renowned for his extraordinary visual precision and masterful use of light, and, perhaps even more distinctively, for his expressive use of darkness and shadow. A true master of the thriller, Jeff Cronenweth, whose cinematography has shaped some of the most compelling thrillers in contemporary world cinema, has been named this year’s recipient of the Special Golden
Camera 300 for Outstanding Contribution to the Art of Cinema, Festival Director Dimitrija Doksevski announced at today’s press conference.
As the cinematographer behind some of the most striking and influential visual masterpieces of contemporary cinema, Cronenweth has helped redefine the language of film. His longstanding and iconic collaboration with director David Fincher has produced unforgettable imagery in films including Fight Club, The Social Network, Gone Girl, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, earning him two Academy Award nominations.
Known as a true master of light and shadow, Cronenweth has also been a pioneer of the digital era of cinematography. He has pushed digital image-making to new levels of sophistication, employing a precise visual psychology in which every camera movement and every carefully controlled beam of light reflect the characters’ inner states and the tension between them.
The master of light, shadow, and sophisticated digital aesthetics will come to Bitola to receive the festival’s highest distinction and join the ranks of the great cinematographers who have been honored with the Special Golden Camera 300. With this recognition, Cronenweth becomes part of a distinguished legacy of international masters of cinematography, further reaffirming Bitola’s place as a global meeting point for the art of visual storytelling.
The award ceremony will take place during the upcoming edition of the International Cinematographers’ Film Festival “Manaki Brothers” in Bitola, where Dan Laustsen and Jeff Cronenweth will receive their awards.
Festival Director Dimitrija Doksevski also announced the participation of several other distinguished figures from world cinema, including Polish-American cinematographer and two-time Academy Award winner Janusz Kamiński, recipient of the Golden Camera 300 at the “Manaki Brothers” Festival. Although Kamiński has previously been honored by the festival, he has never before been able to attend in person. This year, audiences in Bitola will finally have the opportunity to welcome him as part of the Festival’s opening ceremony.
Camera 300 Main Competition Sladjan Penev, selector of the Main Competition, announced the films that will open and close this year’s Festival, both of which are part of the 12-film main selection.
The Camera 300 Competition at the 47th edition of the “Manaki Brothers” Festival comprises twelve films that had their international premieres in 2026 at some of the world’s leading film festivals.
The selection includes two new Macedonian films, which will open and close the Festival. Dina Duma’s SKATEBOARDING IS NOT FOR GIRLS, by cinematographer Frédéric Noirhomme, will have its Macedonian premiere at “Manaki Brothers” following successful presentations at the Tribeca Festival in New York and the Sarajevo Film Festival. This marks Duma’s second film to be presented in the Festival’s Main Competition, following her debut feature SISTERS, which was screened at the 42nd edition of the festival in 2021.
The second Macedonian film in the Camera 300 programme is YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENED BEFORE, directed by Srđan Janićijević and cinematographer Dejan Dimeski. The film will have its international premiere in the coming days at the Oldenburg Film Festival. Dimeski won the Bronze Camera 300 at the “Manaki Brothers” Festival in 2017 for Frog, directed by Elmir Jukić. His films The Balkan Is Not Dead (2013), The Liberation of Skopje (2016), and Mimi (2022) have previously been part of the Camera 300 programme.
Another film in the selection with a Macedonian creative contribution is SHAME AND MONEY, directed by Visar Morina and cinematographer Yannis Mazuch. The German-Kosovo-Slovenian-Macedonian-Belgian-Albanian co-production has enjoyed a highly successful festival run this year. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, where it received one of the festival’s major honours — the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic.
From the immediate region comes UNTIL THE DAY ENDS, the debut feature by Serbian director Jelena Maksimović, with cinematography by Paul Spengemann. The Serbian-Bulgarian-Slovenian-Montenegrin-Croatian-German co-production will have its world premiere in the coming days at the Venice Film Festival, where it will screen in the Horizons section, followed by its regional premiere at the “Manaki Brothers” Festival.
The Camera 300 selection also brings together several other major directorial and cinematographic names, including filmmakers who have previously been part of the “Manaki Brothers” programme.
The director-cinematographer duo İlker Çatak and Judith Kaufmann will return to the Main Competition for the second time, following their Golden Camera 300 win two years ago for The Teachers’ Lounge. This time, their tense psychological, family and political drama YELLOW LETTERS arrives in Bitola after a successful festival journey across Europe and the world, including one of the most prestigious honors in international cinema — the
Golden Bear at the Berlinale.
Two other distinguished director-cinematographer collaborations whose work has previously been presented at “Manaki Brothers” will also return to this year’s programme. The duo Paweł Pawlikowski and Łukasz Żal present FATHERLAND the final chapter in Pawlikowski’s “historical trilogy”, following the acclaimed Ida (2013) and Cold War (2018), both previously awarded at the “Manaki Brothers” Festival with the Silver and Bronze Camera 300 respectively.
Another returning collaboration, Andrey Zvyagintsev and Mikhail Krichman, brings MINOTAUR to Bitola, following their previous appearances in the “Manaki Brothers” programme with Leviathan (2014) and Loveless (2017).
Alongside the festival’s established friends, the Camera 300 programme also introduces audiences to a new generation of cinematographic talents. Among them is Brazilian cinematographer Adolfo Veloso, who emerged prominently on the international scene last year with his lyrical visual work on Clint Bentley’s Train Dreams.
His contribution to QUEEN AT SEA, directed by Lance Hammer, is equally striking, subtly intensifying the film’s atmosphere of anguish and emotional devastation and transforming the family drama into a visually powerful and unsettling experience.
Among the new generation of cinematographers whose work is helping shape significant contemporary films — and whose time is still ahead — the Camera 300 programme will also feature the work of Gerald Kerkletz, with Markus Schleinzer’s ROSA; Ana Draghici with Paul Negoescu’s ATLAS OF THE UNIVERSE; Manu Tilinski, with Tonia Michiali’s LION ON MY BACK; and Zhongjiang Liang, with Zou Jing’s THE GIRL UNKNOWN Penev said.
The 47th International Cinematographers’ Film Festival “Manaki Brothers” Documentary Competition will present ten films from sixteen countries, focusing on the latest visual explorations in contemporary documentary cinema, announced Kumjana Novakova, selector of the Documentary Competition.
With seven films produced in 2026 and three in 2025, the selection brings together established and emerging cinematic voices from the Balkans, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and North America.
“The selection is united not by a single theme, but rather by an exceptional diversity of cinematic approaches,” Novakova said. “The films move between documentary, docufiction, performative cinema, archival practices, new imagery, and experimental forms. Through personal and intimate stories, historical themes, and geographical explorations, the selected films engage with questions of the politics of memory, struggles against violence, and
survival.”
Formally, one of the programme’s defining characteristics is the equal attention given to films of different lengths and forms — from short works to feature-length films — reaffirming documentary cinema as a space for continuous experimentation with the possibilities of the moving image.
“As a festival devoted to cinematography, the selection places particular emphasis on the image as a way of thinking: not merely as a means of documenting the world, but also of questioning, reconstructing and reimagining it,” Novakova added.
Documentary Competition at a Glance: 10 films, 16 countries and/or territories of production, 7 films from 2026,
3 films from 2025, Running times ranging from 15 to 109 minutes.
Gender representation: 4 films directed or co-directed by women; 5 directed or co-directed by men; 1 co-directed by a woman and a man Spanning a wide range of geographical territories from Sudan to Iran and Oman, and from Kosovo and the Balkans to France, Spain and beyond the films return to questions of displacement and migration, memory and historical traces, landscapes marked by violence or transformation, absence and loss, bodies as archives, and the possibility of rereading history through images, Novakova emphasized.
Documentary Competition Films
I PLANT MY HAND IN THE GARDEN
Hoda Taheri & Boris Hadžija
Germany, Serbia, Iran / 82′ / 2026
Cinematographer: Vytautas Katkus
TODO ES CÁRCEL
Eloy Enciso Cachafeiro
Spain / 109′ / 2026
Cinematographer: Jimmy Gimferrer
CROSSINGS: KALEH ZIYARAT
Rouzbeh Akhbari
Canada, Portugal, Iran, Oman / 67′ / 2026
Cinematographers: Rouzbeh Akhbari, Jacopo Falsetta
KRAKATOA
Carlos Casas
France, Poland, Spain, United Kingdom / 78′ / 2026
Cinematographer: Benjamín Echazarreta
THE BEAUTY OF THE DONKEY
Dea Gjinovci
Switzerland, Kosovo, France, USA / 75′ / 2025
Cinematographer: Maxime Kathari
IF YOU DON’T LIKE IT, LOOK AWAY
Margaux Fournier
France / 30′ / 2025
Cinematographer: Théo Vincent Suzzoni
BAREFOOT MARIA
Rebecca Digne
France / 41′ / 2026
Cinematographer: Rebecca Digne
THE WEARY HOURS OF TWO LAB ASSISTANTS
Burak Çevik
Turkey, UK, Germany, Croatia / 23′ / 2026
Cinematographer: Gregory Oke
NOTHING HAPPENS AFTER YOUR ABSENCE
Ibrahim Omar
Cinematographer: Ala Kheir
THE BRIDGE
Léa Triboulet
France / 23′ / 2026
Cinematographer: Michaël Capron
This year’s International Short Film Competition brings together 15 films and continues one of the defining traditions of the “Manaki Brothers” Festival: discovering new cinematographic talents while following the work of filmmakers who return to the festival with new films, announced Festival Short Film selectors Marija Apchevska and Atanas Velekovski, who jointly curated this year’s selection.
The programme brings together films from some of the world’s most important festivals alongside exciting new discoveries. From Cannes comes Daniel Soares’ A FEW THINGS HAPPENING BY A RIVER, by cinematographer Marta Simoes, as well as Berthold Wahjudi’s VATERLAND OR A BULE NAMED YANTO, by Noah Bemm. From Sundance comes Hannah Shirbeck’s RADIANT FROST, with cinematography by Vincent Prokhorov, while the programme also features renowned cinematographer Robbie Ryan, who shot Jesse Musalem’s FAUX BIJOUX.
The programme also has a strong Macedonian presence, with filmmakers Leon Ristov and Samir Ljuma presenting NIKOLA, NIKOLA, Milena Viitman and Marina Koloska with BIRTHING, and Naum Doksevski as cinematographer of BERNA’S EYES.
At the same time, the programme features a strong female creative presence, including directors Lkhagvadulam Purev-Ochir, Dorothea Sing Zhang, Milena Viitman, Jesse Musalem, Jelica Jerinić and Hannah Shirbeck, as well as cinematographers Marta Simoes, Marina Koloska, Virginie Surdej and Mel Noceti, Apchevska noted.
Short Film Competition
A FEW THINGS HAPPENING BY A RIVER (2026, France, Portugal) Director: Daniel Soares, Cinematographer: Marta Simoes
A SOUTH FACING WINDOW (2025, France, Mongolia) Director: Lkhagvadulam Purev-Ochir, Cinematographer: Vasco Viana
AS A CURE (2026, China, United Kingdom) Director: Dorothea Sing Zhang, Cinematographer: Louis Lousterman
BERNA’S EYES (2025, Kosovo, North Macedonia) Director: Ermal Gerdovci, Cinematographer: Naum Doksevski
BIRTHING (2025, North Macedonia, Croatia) Director: Milena Witmann, Cinematographer: Marina Koloska
BLACKBIRD (2025, France) Director: João Paulo Miranda Maria, Cinematographer: Virginie Surdej
FAUX BIJOUX (2026, France, Lebanon) Director: Jesse Musalem, Cinematographer: Robbie Ryan
I USED TO CALL THAT MAN HOME (2026, Mexico, Spain, Italy) Director: Mel Noceti, Cinematographer: Mel Noceti
IMAGINARY NUMBERS (2026, Serbia, Finland) Director: Jelica Jerinić, Cinematographer: Tomislav Šutlar
LAST TROPICS (2025, Greece) Director: Thanasis Troumpoukis, Cinematographer: Konstantinos Koukoulios
NIKOLA, NIKOLA (2026, North Macedonia, USA) Director: Leon Ristov, Cinematographer: Samir Ljuma
NOBODY KNOWS THE WORLD (2026, Peru, Colombia, Spain, Mexico) Director: Rody Dextre, Cinematographer: Julián Amaru
RADIANT FROST (2026, USA, Philippines) Director: Hannah Shirbeck, Cinematographer: Vincent Prokhorov
TUESDAY OR THURSDAY (2026, Montenegro) Director: Dušan Kasalica, Cinematographer: Igor Đorđević
VATERLAND OR A BULE NAMED YANTO (2026, Germany, Indonesia) Director: Berthold Wahjudi, Cinematographer: Noah Bemm
Student Competition
“This year’s Student Competition presents 14 films by emerging filmmakers from diverse backgrounds and film schools. At the heart of each film are human emotions shaped by individual perspectives, temperament, and a sense of place. What all 14 films share is a strong trust in the image on the part of their cinematographers,” said Hanis Bagashov, selector of the Student Competition.
- THE LAKE 2026, North Macedonia / 15 min. Director: Sofija Hristovska, Cinematographer: Dimitar Atanasoski
- OVER THE THRESHOLD 2026, Serbia / 15 min. Director: Tara Gajović, Cinematographer: Nađa Stanišić
- PAST THE HILL OF NAPOLEON’S HAT 2025, Lithuania / 16 min. Director: Arnas Balčiūnas Cinematographer: Milda Juodvalkytė
- NORHEIMSUND 2025, Cuba, USA / 12 min. Director: Ana Alpízar, Cinematographer: Yuqian Zhang
- PANKAJA 2026, India, USA / 14 min. Director: Anooya Swamy, Cinematographer: Luke Kao
- LE MUR DU SON 2025, Italy, Switzerland / 12 min. Director: Antonio La Camera, Cinematographer: Erica Bulian
- NOBODY BARKS 2025, Spain / 20 min. Director: Júlia Coldwell Serra, Cinematographer: Mar Vidal Ferrà
- THE HOTEL 2025, Turkey / 12 min. Director: Halil Tanişan, Cinematographer: Halil Tanişan
- NORTH SOUTH 2025, Poland / 10 min. Director: Stanisław Skonieczny, Cinematographer: Stanisław Skonieczny
- THE BLADE, THE WOUND 2025, France / 20 min. Director: Lucas Minier, Cinematographer: Lucas Minier
- OUT OF THE BLUE 2025, Germany / 8 min. Director: Kevin Koch Cinematographer: Fizzy
- THE END OF CYRANO DE BERGERAC 2026, Czech Republic / 15 min. Director: Rudolf Mašata, Cinematographer: Jáchym Novotný
- NEST 2025, Switzerland / 20 min. Director: Stefania Burla, Cinematographer: Balz Auf der Maur
- FROM 6 TO 5 2026, Kosovo / 10 min. Director: Erlisë Beqiri, Cinematographer: Ardian Dubova