Authors In The Macedonian Cinematography

The filmmakers make the mosaic of any cinematography in whole - with their film works. The authorial part of that mosaic belongs entirely to the film production. Namely, the authors' initiatives and efforts are exactly what makes the film deed an autonomous phenomenon.

The genesis of the authorial situation completely coincides with the genesis of the Macedonian cinematography. So, at the beginning of the 20th century in Bitola, the center of this pert of the Balkans at that time, brothers Janaki and Milton Manaki lived and worked. The challenge, of course, was quite big and deep. Live photography then, was exactly what spoke - most authentically - about the human situation at the time, and about the people's needs and efforts, their ups and downs, etc. Manaki Brothers, with their camera BIOSCOPE No. 300, became active participants in all of the historical events at that time.

At the first stage of the Macedonian cinematography development, at the start of the organized cinematography in Macedonia (1945), more or less spontaneously, the first film authors appear. So the first film-workers, as their professional engagement in the process of the projects' realization, got involved into a various authorial approaches and elements in the film-work. Later, consequently with the development and enlargement of the documentary film production, a noticeable fund of film authors-professionals will emerge.

At the second stage of the Macedonian cinematography development, at the end of the 50's and the beginning of the 60's, appears an echelon of authors with firmly affirmed esthetical attitudes and approaches, and with much firmly closed authorial opuses. The structure of the national feature film in general, by its genre's nature, or more precisely - by its cinema poetics, mostly inclines towards the traditional aesthetics' approaches. The narratives are linked and placed into one whole, should present the ideas that authors wish to impose, or offer - as a public message of the deeds particularly. In that one whole, numerous individual styles can be found, numerous films in which that styles are shown clearly and deeply - and that is how the general style of any particular cinematography is to be formed, as a noticeable mark and an esthetical reflection of the particular time and place.

Looking from the authors' viewpoint, at that time, a significant filmmakers' group was formed - a group of film directors, screenplay writers and a group of (specifically film-music) composers, as well. A great contribution in the affirmation of the Macedonian film was given by the numerous directors of photography, film and sound editors, sound recordists and art and costume designers, as well. And finally, a significant number of the great actors' names are to be mentioned among the film actors that represents the specific whole, which also, along with the cinematography practice, develops and codifies itself as a hardened and fully-formed film expression.