Manaki Brothers Film Festival awards

The 47th Manaki Brothers International Cinematographers Film Festival in Bitola, Macedonia, concluded with several major honors for prominent filmmakers.

During the event, cinematographer Dan Laustsen was presented with the ‘Golden Camera 300’ lifetime achievement award. Laustsen conducted a masterclass where he discussed his career trajectory, his self-taught beginnings in photography, and his technical preference for single-source lighting.

Polish cinematographer Lukas Zal won the top prize, the Golden ‘Camera 300’, for his work on the film ‘Fatherland’ (Tatkovina), directed by Paweł Pawlikowski. The film depicts the relationship between Nobel laureate Thomas Mann and his daughter in 1949 Germany.

Other major awards included the Silver ‘Camera 300’ awarded to China’s Zhongyang Liang for ‘Unknown Girl’ and the Bronze ‘Camera 300’ awarded to Denmark’s Paul Spengemann for ‘Until the End of the Day’. The festival, which featured a record 83 films, was overseen by a jury led by Oscar winner Wally Foster.

The event closed with the Macedonian premiere of ‘You Won’t Believe What Happened Before’, directed by Sergej Janjićijević. Festival director Dimitrija Doksevski noted the edition's record-breaking engagement and high quality of competition.