September 26, Bitola – Before leaving Macedonia, the Academy Award-winner Roger Deakins held a special Master Class only for the students attending the festival, a lot of questions were asked, the students used the rare opportunity to meet and get answers live from one of the great names of world cinematography.

This morning, guest at the press-conference was Kalojan Bozhilov, cinematographer from Bulgaria, who introduced the film Aga.

-A stunning film, a visual poem, which was a Berlinale gem. Some film critics thought that it was a pity for it not to be in the competition at the Festival, but it might be a Bulgarian Academy Award candidate. The film is very unique, done in tough circumstances and it was probably a huge challenge to film in a polar eternal winter, below 20-25°C, the selector Blagoja Kunovski – Dore said.

Bozhilov explained that this film won’t be a Bulgarian candidate for the Oscar this year because it still has to pass the festival light of Varna, but it might happen next year.

-in fact, when we arrived in Yakutia, it was -40°C, but it was the same situation as filming anywhere. The most important thing was not to have to retake scenes because the snow level was rising. You could only film once, no retakes. That made everything go slower. We were filming for 40 days in total. I chose to film on 35mm strip. A filmstrip, not digitally, because of the cold weather, the picture and the story itself. I used an ARRI White Cam, which is quite good. ARRI is a world leader. Milko and I are already a duo, this is the second film we work on, Bozhilov shared experience.

Giving her gratitude for the beautiful film, the festival director Gena Teodosievska pointed out that she was amazed when she saw the film at the Berlin film festival and were trying together with the selector Kunovski to bring the film to the Festival in Bitola.

-I like the fact that there is a storm inside the characters, and the faces of the characters are still. We truly made a compound of the human nature and nature itself, but also put them apart in the wide shots, Teodosievska pointed out.

The film Refuge, directed by Sara Logan Hofstein, was screened as a special feature. It is about an American-Jewish negotiator who moves to Vienna and starts a relationship with a refugee from Ethiopia. The film story connects to the life story of the director and script writer Sara Logan Hofstein.

-I am a Jew from USA who lives in Vienna. A lot was happening in Austria in 2015 that gave the possibility to pull back lines to the events of 1938. The chancellor of Austria stepped down, refugees came in and were put into camps, not concentration camps, but camps nonetheless, personal items were taken from them, the same that was happening to the Jews and all that deal touched me personally as a Jew. Still, about 95% of Austrians, especially the young population, supports the refugees and their struggle, the old regime is in fact the one still holding on to the dated and dangerous values. But the good thing is that it became clear to the Austrians that they were not victims in World War II, but perpetrators, they got that and moved on. We didn’t want to go hard on anyone with this film, but to motivate everyone to do what they can. One person might not change the world, but a movement can, and that is the message. As a short film, it was tough to get the big companies interested in supporting the filming. I want to point out the wonderful sponsorship by ARRI, who gave us the whole working equipment, the director and script writer of the film spoke.

The film is done by a family crew: Sara is daughter of Michael and Maria Hofstein, who appear in this film as a cinematographer and producer respectively, and who, on the other hand, have great experience at the Hollywood productions and studios.

-We are like gears of a family machine. We are a family of filmmakers, we have spent our whole life in the studios in LA, and then in Europe for 20 years. We work very harmoniously as a team, Michael Hofstein, the cinematographer of the film Refuge, said.

From the European Cinema Perspectives selection, Slagjan Penev introduced the film Eternal Winter and the cinematographer András Nagy. The film is based on a true story for some Hungarians who were taken to Soviet concentration camps in 1944. This question has been raised in the Hungarian society for the first time.

-700.000 people were deported and 300.000 of them never returned. This a traumatic episode for a society and it was not talked about for 60-70 years, so it must have been a surprise for the Hungarian public. A lot of Hungarians don’t even know of these events, Penev said.

It is shot on very snowy mountains and they’ve had close encounters with wolves, but the most important thing is that a true story is told in this film for the first time, one which motivated the elders to tell their stories.

-The most important thing is that the people that were there, in Novgorod, couldn’t talk about it at the time, before 1989, and afterwards, they just didn’t want to. This was the moment that started some sort of a talk, and the media fully supported the film. My favorite part of the film is the events from the mine, the whole crew worked underground for a whole week, and we tended to transfer the same feeling of the people who actually worked here at that time, Nagy said.

Introduction of the European program Less Is More (LIM)

Gorjan Tozija, director of the Macedonian Film Agency, and Massimiliano Nardulli today presented the collaboration between the Macedonian Film Agency and the program Less Is More, created by the Le Groupe Ouest (France). Numerous activities will be held as part of this program and the partnership, and as an especially significant one is the organizing of the workshop for local film professionals titled Pre-Writing Workshop.

-What we introduce now is something that is in preparation for the following edition of the Festival, the jubilee, the 40^thedition of the ICFF Manaki Brothers. This program truly is as though created for Macedonia. The main motto of the program is “Less is more” and it focuses on the young cinema-makers who still haven’t made a feature film, up to having made two previous feature film already. The film skill is to make a better film with less money, and that is what we need. If you give someone a lot of money, it is not a guarantee that he will make a good film, but on the contrary, our experience shows that here the films done on a smaller budget have far bigger success. The idea itself, the specific of the script-writing, the more original, inventive, use of recent subjects in them is what will define the budget and will contribute to the appearance of a new wave in Macedonian cinematography, which is our strategic point, Tozija pointed out.

He also pointed out that the MFPA should also aim towards more foreign collaborations. Massimiliano Nardulli, representative of the European program Less Is More (LIM), aimed at lower budget films, where film authors with no or up to two previous feature films can apply, presenting the program, said that Macedonia has a lot of talent and will have its role in the European cinematography.

-Your country is full of stories and a reservoir of talent. This program’s focus is the script and we work with smaller budget projects so that the authors can get to a more creative approach, but also because of the fact that the independent films are in danger from the big productions, Nardulli said.

He pointed out that he is proud that Macedonia is the first country from the Balkans that joins this project.

The short film program for the Small Camera 300 is also in full swing, as the films are judged by the international five-member jury.

The Makpoint program is rather interesting for the audience in Bitola, where the most recent Macedonian productions are screened, quite often even before their official premieres. The screenings are followed by talks with the authors, moderated by Ana Vasilevska, the program selector.

Today marked the end of the IMAGO Balkan Conference, the conference of the Federation of world cinematographers from 53 national associations and over 4300 member-cinematographers. Aside from the cinematographers from the region, the Macedonian representatives Dejan Dimeski, Naum Doksevski and Dushan Kardalevski, the conference was also attended by the leading men of IMAGO, the president Paul René Roestad and Nigel Walters.

September 25, Bitola – Today’s festival day started with the introduction of the film from the European Cinema Perspectives program, The Marriage and the director Blerta Zeqiri.

This is a Kosovar film which showcases an unusual love triangle, where, only two weeks before Anita and Bekim’s wedding, Bekim’s secret lover, Nol comes to town.

-The film opens up a subject of which existence we are not aware, but it is more at the margins of the society. The problem the LGBT community faces is quite boldly treated. Although it has all the aspects of a Balkan community, there are very beautiful patriarchal scenes, treating the traditional values, because the people in the audience aren’t always ready to see scenes of two male actors making love, Slagjan Penev, selector of the European Cinema Perspectives program, said.

The film The Marriage is the first feature film of the director Zeqiri and it had quite a great success at festivals so far.

-The influence by the actors was quite big in the making of the script, but I also want to point out their bravery to accept being part of this project because when we started to prepare the film in 2012-2013, there was a big accident at a party in Kosovo promoting an issue devoted to the LGBT community. A large group of extremists came by, wrecking everything, and some people were beaten up. That is why we were also terrified that something similar might happen to us considering the subject of the film. We kept the film a secret, the media didn’t know the theme, but they helped us by not publishing anything until we finished the film. A great deal was done also by the actors Alban Ukaj, who is very popular, who has worked abroad and is known as the Kosovar Brad Pitt, everyone loves him, and the role of Nol, the lover in the film, is played by the Kosovar rock-star Genc Salihu, Zeqiri said.

The cinematographer Lukas Milota spoke about the film Winter Flies, which was screened last night as part of the Golden Camera 300 competition. The film and cinematographer were introduced by the selector of the official program of the Festival, Blagoja Kunovski – Dore.

-The children are not professional actors. Working with them was quite a long process, the rehearsals lasted more than six months, but at the end we got the effect of teenage adventurers who set off south across the frozen landscape in search of an adventure, Milota said. He is present at the Manaki Brothers festival for the second time.

Milota said that he used an ALEXA Mini camera, because it was quite compact and easy to handle, especially for this film.

Marija Apchevska introduced two film crews from the short films selection. The director of the film Birch, Paisley Valentine Walsh spoke of the idea of the film.

-The childhood memories were the main idea to shoot this film. We tried to stay close to the memories the whole time, Paisley said.

The film is shot on a filmstrip, which is very hard.

-The harder thing is the fact that you also have a dog and two children and you don’t have the opportunity to shoot the scenes multiple times. We made the choice of working on filmstrip because we think that it gives more connection to the audience, Vincenzo Marranghino, the cinematographer of the film Birch, pointed out.

The second film from the short films selection that was introduced today was the film Without Love, which was shot in hard conditions on a mountain.

-We were shooting three days in Mavrovo, the location is in Macedonia, and it was hard to work in those conditions. We know that the scene of jumping in the lake leaves a stronger impression, and it wasn’t easy to shoot it, but we did it, the director and script writer of the film, Dina Duma, said.

As part of the First Films First program, the cinematographer Christian Berger and the production designer Christoph Kanter held a Master Class on the subject Creating Visual Style in Haneke’s Films. The attendees were greeted by the festival director Gena Teodosievska and the program coordinator Stefan Arsenijevikj, who said that it is a great honor for this program to collaborate with the Manaki Brothers festival for three years in a row. The moderator of the Master Class was Samir Ljuma. The Master Class focused on three films by Haneke where the two guests collaborated. On the question if the production designer is some sort of a cultural anthropologist, Kanter answered that it is true because there should be some quite thorough research of what everything was like in the time showcased in the film. Berger pointed out the collaboration with his fellow cinematographers, one of whom is Roger Deakins himself, who he had discussion with over issues while working on the film The White Ribbon. In terms of framing, Berger highlighted that with time the good cinematographer simply develops a feeling of exactly what information he should give to the viewer. He has quite often been inspired by art and paintings. Berger and Kanter were unanimous that, while working on films, everyone needs to make sure they have the same interpretation as the director of what is not written down in the script.

Following the screening of the documentary film Living the Light last night, a film devoted to the life and work of the cinematographer Robby Muller, the recipient of the 2016 Golden Camera 300 for Lifetime Achievement, the director Claire Pijman and Robby Muller’s wife, Andrea Muller answered the questions from the audience.

-I am honored to be here amongst such good and famous cinematographers, and even though I shot and edited this film, I always see something new there and I am truly thankful for giving us the chance to screen it here. The film’s structure was dictated by the huge archive of recordings and photographs, the director Pijman said.

His wife Andrea said that the light, the work were important to Robby Muller as much as the family, but the film shows quite well that the trust was quite important for him and for the communication with the family, but also for the work. Robby wanted to work with directors he can trust and when he gets that trust back, the collaboration bloomed.

Roger Deakins also attended the screening and said that he very much appreciates Muller’s work, especially the way he used color and that he has had great influence into his own work, pointing an example in the film To Live and Die in LA, which had changed the way Hollywood works.

The film devoted to Robby Muller had its premiere at the Venice Film Festival shortly after his death. His wife Andrea said that it was rather complicated for the family to watch the film, but they realized that it is a great landmark of Robby Muller’s work. She also gave her gratitude to the Manaki Brothers festival and said that when she was coming to Bitola, it had a special significance because she followed the path of her husband, who has attended the Manaki Brothers festival couple of time before.

On the other hand, this year’s festival star, Claudia Cardinale and her crew, visited the city of Ohrid last night. She was amazed by the Ohrid pearls, the nature and the churches of Ohrid.

The director of the ICFF Manaki Brothers publicly gave her gratitude to the Institute and Museum of Ohrid and to the director Eleonora Novakovska for providing the opportunity for the world-renowned film diva Claudia Cardinale and the important guests of the festival to get to know the cultural treasure of Macedonia. The guests visited Ohrid this last Monday and, even though it was a non-working day, the director Novakovska allowed for them to see the valuable exhibits of the cultural treasure of Macedonia.

This morning, the Center for Culture in Bitola was filled with children’s voices, as the youngest audience came for the start of the children’s program.

The student program is also underway, as 30 students from 15 academies from the region are present at the festival.

Tomorrow, the second day of the IMAGO Balkan Conference will be part of the Festival’s program, as well as a meeting with Saïd Ould Khelifa and Dominique Bax, who will speak of the film festivals and film criticism.

The 25th Sibiu International Festival Astra Film, which will take place from 15 to 21 October, has announced relevant film industry personalities as the 13 members of the Jury for its 5 competition sections: International, Central and Eastern Europe, Romania, Shorts, and Docschool. The jurors will choose the winners out of 55 titles in competition from 30 countries, selected from over 3,000 submissions from 93 countries. Prizes amount to a total cash value of over 25,000 euros.

Pursuant to the second competition announced for the cinematographic works production co-financing, the Film Centre of Montenegro will, at the proposal of the Council, support the total of 22 projects in different categories: screenplay development, project development, feature and short documentary films, as well as feature and short feature films .

Screenplay and Project Development

The total of 4 projects received support in the project development competition. The Commission assessed that the project “Face of Honor”, directed by Nikola Vukčević, Galileo Production Company, represents a “well-prepared project with a clear concept, vision and strategy for further development. The project “Forever Hold Your Peace”, directed by Ivan Marinović, is a mentality comedy with great potential for cinema and festival placement, developed by an author who knows the environment in which the action takes place. The commission assessed the project “The Rear Admiral” directed by Mladen Ivanović, Production Company Artikulacija Film, as a courageous and important story with a clearly designed concept. The Commission assessed the project “Nehaj” by Milija Šćepanović, received funds for the script development.

A total of 5 synopsis received support at the competition for script development. The Commission noted that the synopsis “The Fall” of Aleksandar Bečanović represents a “potentially interesting genre film leaning on Hollywood’s best tradition from the time large film studios produced art films, which in terms of domestic cinematography represents a very innovative approach.” “History of Light” of Ognjen Spahić, was assessed as “an extremely shocking story with a clear author’s vision and a critical recollection of the past, told in an interesting and multiple layered way. “The Fear” by Željko Sošić, was recognized as “an intimate story about the modern world that is unstoppably crumbling in front of the eyes of the hero.” The Commission assessed the synopsis “The Day I Stopped Playing“ by Bojan Stijović as “a story of growing up and self-consciousness of heroes in a small environment that gets too close to him”, while “The Shot“ of Jovana Bojović was assessed as “a surprising family drama full of passion and turbulent psychological state of mind of the main characters.” 

Feature and short documentary film

Pursuant to the Commission’s decision, total of 6 projects received support in the documentary film category. “The Last Nomad“, by Petar Glomazić, was assessed as “a seriously thought-out project with original authorial approach, full of honest poetry charge, with a clear line of vision in which the author’s commitment and his love for nature and man are felt.” The Commission assessed the project under the working title “Kosovo Refugees in Montenegro in 1999”, by the author Velibor Čović as a story of “three generations with a focus on the current situation of refugees in Montenegro, a project of rich research work, which through raw documentary corpus, is depicting the way we treated people as human beings, and not the nations at the times of crisis.”

The “Unadjusted, Film Count“, by the director Radoslav T. Stanisić, was assessed as “a television documentary which in the area of film and life creation incites memories of one of the most important Montenegrin and Yugoslav filmmakers, directors and professors – Milo Đukanović.” Pursuant to the Commission’s opinion, the project “EX-YU Rock Tragedies” by Danilo Marunović represents “interesting project dealing with the phenomenon of the tragic deaths of rock stars from the ex-Yu area”, requiring fine tuning thus the project received funds for the project development.

In the category of short documentaries, 2 projects received support. “We Are Sons of Your Rocks“ by Ivan Salatić in which the director, as the Commission assessed, through “a special authorial approach presented through the form of an experimental film, depicts three elderly men in search of the grave of an unknown Italian soldier shot and buried before the end of the WWII at the foot of the mountain Bjelasica.” “The Librarian“ by Branislav Milatović – which “with an interesting director’s approach explores the phenomenon of libraries in the 21^st century, being told from the point of view of a librarian from Kotor, where the focus is placed on the rituals of a man who crosses the boundary of the ordinary and becomes something more than that.” 

Feature and short feature films

The first competition for feature films production co-financing entailed also the presentation of projects before the Commission. All nine submitted projects were presented by the authors and producers before the Commission.

After reviewing the submitted documentation and presentations, the Commission decided to support a total of 6 projects. The project “Elegy of Laurel” by Dušan Kasalica, who received the project’s support for the project development, was assessed as an “extremely high-quality and stylishly consistently written project, with the intention to abandon drama and rely on emotional and poetic logic, with specific a directional approach aimed at offering innovative and original solutions.“ The project “Sirin”, directed by Senad Šahmanović, who was the successful applicant at the previous competition of the Centre in the category of project development, was assessed by the Commission as “a well-developed project with potential for international success confirmed through eminent workshops. The project of the working title “Skype”, directed by Ise Qosje, the Commission assessed as “a strong existential drama with striking characters and situations, with the authenticity of the ambience in the north of Montenegro, with precise scripting procedure and a clear directional vision”. The feature-length feature film “Breasts”, directed by Marija Perović, was assessed as “a unique female story told from the vision of three main characters, in which the author brings a simple, true and unpretentious story through tragic-comic elements.” The Commission assessed the project “Hit the Sky”, directed by Milutin Darić, as a story dealing with the universal theme of love, with the simplicity in the treatment of the elements. Pursuant to the Commission’s opinion, the project “Zaliv” by Draško Đurović, has a great potential, with a clear and precise director’s approach, which requires some alterations of the scenario, and for this reason the project received funds for project development. In the category of short films, the Commission has allocated funds to the project “The Aery“ of the director Milija Šćepanović.

In the following period, individual contracts will be concluded with the successful applicants, which will regulate the rights and obligations of the contracting parties, the payment schedule, the way of using allocated funds and other issues of importance.

Women in Film – an informal Polish organization gathering over 3000 women working in the film industry – organized a conference entitled “50:50 by 2020” on Friday, 21 September 2018 during the Gdynia Film Festival.

Following the inspiring example of fellow women from all over the world and declarations signed in Venice, Toronto, and Locarno, Polish Women in Film have decided to propose a similar approach to Gdynia Film Festival management. 

The Polish film industry is indisputably filled with remarkable female talent, such as: Agnieszka Holland, Małgośka Szumowska, and Jagoda Szelc. However, recent research conducted by dr Monika Talarczyk from Łódź Film School, which was commissioned by Krytyka Polityczna (Political Critique) on the basis of data analysed from the Polish Film Institute, leads to a damning conclusion: only 13% of the Polish Film Institute’s budget was allocated to female filmmakers in the last 12 years, which means that 87% of it was given to male directors. Women in Film has therefore decided to host a conference announcing these research findings as well as taking a comparative look at gender equality in film industry funding across Europe. Attendees include Iris Zappe Heller ( Deputy Director of the Austrian Film Institiute), Madelaine Ekman (Swedish Film Institute expert) and Peter Carpentier (Member Executive Committee of the Federation of European Audiovisual Directors).

Alongside international experts, dr Monika Talarczyk from Łódź Film School is going to present key findings from her analysis of data from the Polish Film Institute.

The general director of the festival Mr. Leszek Kopec alongside the writer/director Mr. Wojciech Marczewski Head of the Programming Board of the Festival signed the gender parity pledge announcing

- to present a schedule and plan of implementation of changes aiming to achieve parity in all decisive bodies of the festival: Programming Board, Selection Committee, Qualification Committee, Jury,

• to continue the transparency policy,

• to compile statistics of gender of the directors of all the films submitted to selection,

- to present, at the 44. Gdynia Film Festival, the results of actions taken by the Festival’s management in order to ensure gender parity.

The conference was supported by: Agnieszka Holland, Jagoda Szelc, Małgośka Szumowska, Klara-Kochańska-Bajon, Julia Kijowska, Anna Radwan, Sonia Bohosiewicz, Gabriela Muskała, Agnieszka Smoczyńska, Kasia Adamik, Olga Chajdas, Ewa Bukowska, Agnieszka Smoczyńska.

The opening speech was given by the leader of the movement Renata Czarnkowska-Listoś (producer) together with Małgorzata Szumowska. Absent Agnieszka Holland recorded her greatings to all guests and organizers. The closing speech was given by Ewa Puszczyńska, producer of “Cald War” who stated that’s important for women in the industry to stay united and the conference proved the strength of the women in the film industry.

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