The festival Art Director, Blagoja Kunovski – Dore, said that the prominence of this year’s laureate can be testified by the spectacular number of 115 different international cinema awards, along with 148 nominations.
“After several years of persistent attempts to bring one of the greatest living world cinematographers – Roger Deakins, in Macedonia/Bitola, we finally managed to get him, and in the same year when he finally became an Oscar-winning author for his creation in the already anthological work of art from his rich opus – Blade Runner 2049. We believe that for the audience and for all film-lovers, the arrival of the Deakins couple in Bitola and Macedonia, as our top VIP guests, will be a great honor, a great pride and joy. We are convinced that we are in for another super-successful edition of the world’s oldest festival dedicated to the cinematographers’ art” - said Kunovski.
Festival Director Teodosievska said that this edition will mark an increase in the number of festival programmes, and that this year there will be a total of 14 of them. She also announced the new festival programmers: Marija Dzidzeva will work on the documentary programme, Darijan Pejovski and Marija Apchevska will be programmers of the short film programme, and Slagjan Penev will select the films for the “European Cinema Perspectives” programme.
“This festival has fostered and will continue to foster the exceptional universal values that cinema as a form of art has embedded in its ontological position, and which are reflected in our programmes – as many as 14 this year. The International Cinematographers Film Festival Manaki Brothers is very often recognized as a very specific and authentic film territory, because of the honest respect it pays to the master of the visual creation of film art, the cinematographers, but also due to the spontaneity that all festival guests encounter” - Teodosievska said.
She emphasized that this festival is the oldest and the first one in the world dedicated to the cinematographers’ creation and that this reputation should be further enhanced with the presence of the laureates and the cinematographers participating in the Main Competition Camera 300, as well as the master-classes held by the legends of the motion pictures.
The President of the Macedonian Film Professionals’ Association, Igor Ivanov – Izi, also addressed the media, emphasizing that the Association remains committed to the Festival.
“The Macedonian Film Professionals’ Association remains committed to the Festival as its primary activity, through which, for almost four decades, the film professionals, the press and the audience from our country have had the opportunity to host and directly communicate with the crème de la crème of the seventh art. We are particularly proud that for years back, the world’s greatest names from among the authors whose task is to cinematically shape the most valuable film achievements in the World, regardless of whether they originate from art-house studios or are products of large-scale studies and carry the hallmark of cinema as art, see the invitation to participate or be honored with a prize at our festival as a great honor and recognition for their work” - said Ivanov.
The Ambassador of Great Britain, his Excellency Charles Garrett also had an address at the press-conference, expressing his satisfaction that his compatriot and master of world cinema wins this year’s recognition of the Manaki Brothers Festival.
“To us, cinema is a part of the creative industries, an area where we have achieved success. Thank you for inviting me, and my hat’s off” - Ambassador Garrett said.
