Festivali        39thManaki Film Festival 2018

Cinematographers First…

Take your hat off… and bow your heads to Manaki Brothers, Milton and Yannaki, for their pioneer works with photography and camera. For eight days, Bitola lived its best international film 39th film festival organised by the Macedonian Film Professional Association with the support of the Municipality of Bitola. Cinematographers, members of film agencies, press people from around the world, politicians, ministers, the Municipality of Bitola, film art lovers and the Bitola public attended screenings of more than 95 films in 14 programs: Competition Camera 300, Short film Competition, European Cinema Perspectives, Documentaries, Out of Competition, Mak Point, EFA Short Matters, Film Classics, Student Sessions, Junior program and, of course, the master classes. They all were eager to see close the legendary film maker Roger Deakins, winner of Special Golden Camera 300 and a shining Claudia Cardinale for their outstanding contribution to world cinema art.

The uniqueness of this festival - in contrast to other festival - lies on its focus on the directors of photography (DoP), usually unseen, who strive to materialise the ideas of famous directors - and  screenwriters. Camerawork is equal to all elements in the film and contribute to the total balance. “Living in an era of pictures which we tell stories, the hardest thing is to find the right picture – to make us feel them timeless. The duty of the jury lies in the ideal of the camerawork together with the whole quality of the film,”said the president of the jury Olympia Mytilinaiou.

The festival started with The Lover by Igor Ivanov and finished with Scout by Alex Cvetkov (Macedonia-Croatia-Slovena co-production), both pieces of the new wave in the most recent film productions of Macedonian cinematography, supported by the Film Agency. The second film, BlacKKlansman, directed by Spike Lee, was the last Camera 300 selection.

The jury consisted of: Olympia Mytilinaiou, president (born in Greece and based in Athens, cinematographer in many films, documentaries, shorts, TV programs,  audiovisuals), Rainer Klausmann (Switzerland, celebrated DoP in about 30 films, Camera-300 awarded, and steady collaborator of Turk-German Fatih Akin), Mattias Troelstrup (Danish, DoP, with feature/doc/short films and in many world festivals), Rebecca Fayyad Palud (Iranian, educated in America, agent for the world’s best cinematographers and production designers and co-founder of LUX film agency in Europe) and Gjorche Stavreski (born and educated in Skopje,  author of many internationally awarded feature/doc/short films and director and his debut long feature film has been awarded with Audience Award in Balkan Survey program at Thessaloniki Film festival 2017).

Awards for the Short Film Competition

- The Small Golden Camera 300 was presented by Rainer Klausmann to Adric Watson, an Australian cinematographer of the film All These Creatures (directed by Charles Williams).The camera, consistenly faithful to the story, unrolls the story of a teenager boy and his father in tormented memories we may all have been exposed in some ways.

-The Bronze Camera 300 award went to the Polish cinematographer Lukasz Zal (director Paweł Pawlikowski) for the film Cold War (Poland-UK-France). A fatal love story between a man and a woman crossing borders (Poland, Berlin, Paris, Yugoslavia) in impossible times, is so eloquently depicted by the camera.

-The Silver Camera 300 went to Eric Gautier (French) for the work on Jia Zhang-ke`s film Ash Is Purest White, an intimate love storyof a determent rebellious woman and a mobster in a rapidly changing Chinese society today. It was presented by Mattias Troelstrup who explained the unique way the camera flawlessly and restlessly followed the film plot, but never in a rush.

-The president of the international jury Olympia Mytilinaiou announced the recipient of the Golden Camera 300 award, which went to the South Korean cinematographer Kyong-Pyo Hong for the film Burning, by director Chang-Dong Lee (S. Korea, Japan) analyzing how the camera tells the unusual story of two young men and woman, with humor and feeling.

I managed to see 27 films in six days. On the basis of what has been mentioned above, most of them were of extreme quality, while some lacked some features (for instance, no message, wrong position of the camera, tiring rhythm, weak scenario, etc). Of course to a degree, rating and judging films is a matter of the viewer’s perception, sentiment, identification and surely a cinematic background.

Some of the films that impressed me: 1) Girl by Lucas Dhont, DoP Frank van den Eeden. A very powerful film, on the verge of a documentary on a very difficult subject of a young person struggling to cope with the sexual identity. To me it was an ‘educational’ sort, putting forward the test to the misconceptions that my generation (over 50 years), at least, carries on the subject. Frank Eeden’s short saluted the viewers with the wish that films ‘should go to their heart.’ 2) Film Aga by director Milko Lazarov, DoP Kaloyan Bozhilov (Bulgaria-Germany-France). The tenderness and affection of the Inuit couple enchanted everyone. The hard reality of the life in the polar north, very well depicted, made the shootings at 50 degrees below 0, very demanding and costly. Many felt that several scenes were too long. 3) Eternal Winters, a drama based on a true story, by Attila Szasz and DoP Andras Nagy (Hungary).1944: Hungarian women of German origin are deported - Stalin’s orders - to a  Siberia mine for 5 years. But, a woman is determened to survive and see her daughter again, no matter what. 4) You Did Not Forget, by Simon Intihar and DoP Jure Nemec (Slovenia). A desperate woman in panic searches her missing husband with memory loss. 5) Pin Cushion by Deborah Haywood – DoP Nicola Daley (U.K)). A shy teenage girl and her Close mother move to a new place and struggle to make new friends in a hostile atmosphere. Survival and growing up will not be easy. 6) Circle, a short film by Ruken Tekesand, DoP DenizEyuboglu (Turkey). A seven-year old girl of Kurdish origin attempts to assimilate in a school of many ethnicities and languages and a very good teacher.

Documentary programme: 1) La Boca from Argentina. A mother tries to keep the family together in an underworld neighborhood of Buenos Aires. 2) Distant Constellation (Turkey-Holland). A powerful film shot in an old-age home in Istanbul. Tenants, with haunted memories or delusions, speak to the camera. 3) In Praise of Nothing, by Boris Mitic (Serbia-France-Croatia). 62 famous cinematographers, defend “NOTHING” against the common misunderstanding as useless. Part of a trilogy: Everything-Doubt-Nothing, declares Boris. 4) Pope Francis – A Man of His World, by Wim Wenders. In this ‘road movie’  the popular Pope suggests church reforms and states his answers to universal questions. Personally, I find it hypocritical, as he insists that ‘he knew nothing’ of the shockingly extensive peadophilia of one third of the priests. 5) Persona, a tribute to Bergman (100 years) in the Film Classics program drew a large audience and the presence of the Swedish Ambassador. 6) Charleston (Romania) by Andrei Cretulesku (DoPBarbuBalasolu). A 2017 comedy. While a 42-years old man mourns the death of his wife, a younger man confesses his affair with the deceased and offers to …mourn in sympathy. The film received awards in the Thessaloniki film festival, Nov 2017, and in Romania’s Kluj festival in June 2018.

As for the Macedonian filmmakers, young and older, the films are overwhelmingly very good and the progress is optimistic, if there are more funds and better organisation, as expressed in the in the student sessions, especially.

In the Small Sala, people filled the master class by Christian Berger and Christopher Kanter, and so were the “Meetings” of young filmmakers and students with Massimiliano Nardulli, as well as with Saϊd O.Khelifa and Dominique Bax.

Disappointed with the short films: Aria, a Cyprus-France production (direction MyrsiniAristidou- doP Feder Martin) and Refuge (Austria) by Sara Hofstein (DoP Michael man, her father). A very superficial touch on a huge problem I am involved in for the last three years. But, nevertheless, it is well-meant naïve attempt.

The Manaki Brothers festival is always a miraculous place where you can learn new things, meet or create new friendships. Most of us felt grateful for the great selection of films and to those (staff and volunteers) behind the curtains who stood-by to help.

This work cannot be done by a single person, said the festival director Gena Teodosievska in her two-word farewell address adding that “the film belongs to everyone and that knowledge may save the world“.

I close  this report with the wish that the 40th Manaki film festival will be equally successful, if not better.

Kyriakos Peftitselis