Skopje, 4 July 2024 (MIA) - French cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel is the winner of the Special Golden Camera 300 award at the 45th edition of the Manaki Brothers International Cinematographers' Film Festival, to be held September 21-27 in Bitola.

"This year we celebrate the 45th anniversary of the Manaki Brothers festival. This is a very important anniversary for us because we have the opportunity to take advantage of the favorable circumstances that exist at the level of film festivals worldwide. The Manaki Brothers festival is the first and oldest in the world dedicated to the art of cinematography. We specialize in that. Currently, we are one of the two largest festivals in the world. Be prepared for a series of surprises," said ICFF Manaki Brothers director Simeon Moni Damevski at a press conference on Thursday.

He added that he expects all previous winners to attend the 45th anniversary of the festival.

"Only 18 out of 35 Life Achievement award winners are currently alive and we are trying to invite them and bring them all to Macedonia, although most of them are over the age of 80. We want to give all of them cameras and have them record at least a minute or two of Bitola, as seen through the eyes of the great experts," Damevski noted.

This year's Life Achievement Award winner Bruno Delbonnel was born in Nancy, Meurthe-et-Moselle, France in 1957. He studied philosophy in Sorbonne, and graduated from the College of Cinematography (ESEC), a popular school for cinematography in Paris.
In 1993, he made his feature film debut in collaboration with director Jean-Pierre Jeunet in their two anthology works that earned Delbonnel the first two out of a total of six Oscar nominations for Amélie (2002) and A Very Long Engagement (2005).

In addition to his Oscar nomination in 2002, he was also nominated for a BAFTA, César Award, and a European Film Award.

Delbonnel received further Oscar nominations for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2010) for one of the most visually effective movies from the Harry Potter series, Inside Llewyn Davis (2013), The Darkest Hour (2018), and The Tragedy of Macbeth (2022).

In 2019, he was appointed the head of the cinematography department of the Paris film school, La Fémis. ssh/ik/

Photo: ICFF Manaki Brothers