Skopje, 23 July 2025 (MIA) - Manaki Brothers International Cinematographers' Film Festival, due to be held in Bitola on September 20-26, this year will feature over 40 movies in the official selection all the while hosting more than 100 local and foreign attendees.

Two Macedonian features will vie for the main prize, Golden Camera 300. Namely, "Mother", the new film by Macedonian director Teona Strugar Mitevska and the director of photography, Virginie Saint-Martin, will open the 46th Manaki Brothers festial, which will close with the screening of "DJ Ahmet", directed by Georgi M. Unkovski with Naum Doksevski as director of photography. 

The special Camera 300 for outstanding contribution in cinema will be awarded to the Turksh director Semih Kaplanoglu. This year, the Association of Film Professionals for Macedonia will present the Big Star of Macedonian Cinema Award to film composer Kiril Dzaikovski, it was announced at Wednesday's news conference held by festival organizers.

Preparations for this year's edition of the festival have been intensified in the past 3,5 months, said festival director Dimitrija Doksevski announcing it as being "exciting, rich and quality."

It is the first festival in the world that celebrates the art of cinematography, he stressed.

"This year we are reintroducing the 'Makpoint' program, which features Macedonian productions," Doksevski said adding that some 40 films will vie in the official selection.
The main program, due to be revealed soon, will feature new films awarded at some of the world's most prestigious festivals, including those held in Cannes, Berlin, Venice and Toronto, said Slagjan Penev, the festival's film selector.

Also, the Association of Film Professionals of Macedonia at the Bitola festival will mark its 75th anniversary after Macedonia's first production company, Vardar Film, was established in 1950, announced the association's president, film director Igor Ivanov - Izi.

Film composer Kiril Dzaikovski is this year's recipient of the Big Star of Macedonian Cinema Award, which will be handed out at the festival's closing ceremony on September 26. Awarded since 2013, its first recepient was the late director, Kiril Cenevski.

According to Ivanov - Izi, Dzaikovski is "not only a film composer, a well-known Skopje resident, but also a creator of the culture profile of our city and of our country."

Photo: MIA