The festival grew with great potential so that after the Declaration of Independence of the Republic of Macedonia, on the 8 of September, 1991 it was transformed into an International Festival of world cinemas represented with feature films, competing for the three festival awards: the Golden, Silver and Bronze Camera 300. Thus Bitola became the Mecca of the best international cinematographers, discovering many new talents who are today deemed superb wizards of film photography and cinema aesthetics. They are adorned with the awards of our festival, and at the same time recognized as glorious Oscar-winners who have strolled down the streets of Bitola, which they have considered to be an artistic hub, going back for many years
WHO WE ARE
FESTIVAL OF MASTERS OF CINEMATOGRAPHY
The International Cinematographers’ Film Festival “MANAKI BROTHERS” is the first and oldest film festival in the world dedicated to the creativity of cinematographers. It started in 1979 with the initiative of one of the main founders – MFPA/ the Macedonian Film Professionals’ Association. It was also co-organized with the Cinematheque of Macedonia and host-city of Bitola, established in honor and inspired by the abundant photographic/cinematographic opus of the MANAKI brothers: Yanaki (1878-1954) and Milton (1880-1964).
OUR CLUB OF GREATS
Apart from the multitude of laureates of the awards from the CAMERA 300 competition, the Manaki Brothers is also proud of its CLUB OF GREATS which features the laureates of our two highest honorary awards: the “Golden Camera 300 for Lifetime Achievement for cinematography” – awarded to the greatest world masters of cinematography/photography and the “Special Golden Camera 300“ – awarded for outstanding contribution to the art of film.
After the posthumously presented Golden Camera 300 for Lifetime Achievement to Milton MANAKI, on the 17th edition of the Festival in 1996, the Golden Cameras 300 for Lifetime Achievement in 1997 went to the Macedonian doyens – cinematographers Ljube PETKOVSKI and Branko MIHAJLOVSKI, while in the oncoming editions to date, laureates of these precious recognitions have been great cinematographers of world cinema art, such as: Sven NYKVIST, Henri ALEKAN, Freddie FRANCIS, Jose Luis ALCAINE, Jerzy WÓJCIK, Raoul COUTARD, Vittorio STORARO, Vadim YUSOV, Miroslav ONDŘÍČEK, Tonino Delli COLLI, Walter CARVALHO, Michael BALLHAUS, Vilmos ZSIGMOND, Billy WILLIAMS, Peter SUSCHITZKY, Dante SPINOTTI, Anatoli PETRITSKY, Luciano TOVOLI, Chris MENGES, Ryszard LENCZEWSKI, Jaromir SOFR, Bozidar Bota NIKOLIC, Robby MÜLLER, John SEALE, Giuseppe ROTUNNO, Pierre LHOMME, Roger DEAKINS, Edward LACHMAN, Giorgos ARVANITIS, Janusz KAMINSKI, Christian BERGER, Anthony Dod Mantle.
Тhe winners of the Special Award Golden Camera 300 are:
Christopher Doyle, Anthony Dod MANTLE, Robby MÜLLER, Bruno Delbonnel, Roger PRATT, Christian BERGER, Agnès GODARD, Luca BIGAZZI; as well as the actors: Victoria ABRIL, Daryl HANNAH, Catherine DENEUVE, Isabelle HUPPERT, Juliette BINOCHE, Bruno GANZ, Charles DANCE, Miki MANOJLOVIC, Aleksey SEREBRYAKOV and the directors: Jerzy MENZEL, Veljko BULAJIĆ, Karen SHAKHNAZAROV, the double Academy Award winner – the producer Branko LUSTIG, Phedon Papamichael, Milcho Manchevski, Claudia Cardinale, Andrei Konchalovski, Jocelyn Pook and Јоhn Mathieson.
Маny of these great cinematographers were presidents or members of the main international jury and have thus contributed significantly in increasing the importance of our Camera 300 Awards, which are given for exceptional cinematographers, who participate in our main (feature) film competition each year.
Click below to download the 40 Years Festival Monograph: