IMAGO Presidents

The Foundation. 

IMAGO, the Euro­pean Fed­er­a­tion of Nation­al Cin­e­matog­ra­phers Asso­ci­a­tions, was offi­cial­ly found­ed in Rome on Decem­ber 13^th, 1992 on the idea and ini­tia­tive of Luciano Tovoli, at that moment Pres­i­dent of the Ital­ian Soci­ety of Cin­e­matog­ra­phers AIC, as a result of very imag­i­na­tive, enthu­si­as­tic and hard work done dur­ing two meet­ings in Rome, in the AIC head­quaters in Cinecit­ta’, with the prompt, cre­ative and deci­sive par­tic­i­pa­tion of well-estab­lished and well-known Soci­eties of Cin­e­matog­ra­phers, name­ly AIC (Italy), AFC (France), BSC (UK) and BVK (Ger­many).

Bojana Andric, SAS

One of the most promi­nent young cin­e­matog­ra­phers in her coun­try, Bojana Andric shot numer­ous nar­ra­tive fea­ture films, TV series and doc­u­men­taries. Her films are var­ied, both com­mer­cial and inde­pen­dent hav­ing been screened at many world­wide fes­ti­vals as well as very suc­cess­ful results in cinemas. 

A mem­ber of the Ser­bian Soci­ety of Cin­e­matog­ra­phers, Vice-Pres­i­dent Bojana met IMAGO at the Bel­grade cer­e­mo­ny, and soon after she was invit­ed to become a mem­ber of the Tech­ni­cal Com­mit­tee. In 2021 she was nom­i­nat­ed and elect­ed as a Board mem­ber and co-Vice Pres­i­dent. She became Inter­im co-pres­i­dent in 2022. 

Bojana is the youngest mem­ber of the IMAGO Board. 

She also has pro­duc­ing and a rich lec­tur­ing expe­ri­ence, as well as Board and Pres­i­den­tial expe­ri­ence of the artis­tic cul­tur­al asso­ci­a­tion of young artists in her home­town. After more than 10 years with­out reg­u­lar cin­e­ma their efforts led to the foun­da­tion of a new mod­ern cin­e­ma, co-foun­da­tion of the rec­og­nized local film fes­ti­val and numer­ous film­mak­ing work­shops for young peo­ple that were sup­port­ed by the Min­istry of Cul­ture, City gov­ern­ment and many oth­er insti­tu­tions and sponsors.

Adriana Bernal Martínez, ADFC

Adri­ana Bernal Martínez is a cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er, grad­u­at­ed from the pres­ti­gious French Film School, FEMIS, and has  a Bach­e­lor of Sci­ence degree in com­mu­ni­ca­tion from the Jave­ri­ana Uni­ver­si­ty of Bogotá. 

Adri­ana Bernal was the first woman direc­tor of pho­tog­ra­phy in Colom­bia and one of the first to appear in a film cred­it as a depart­ment head. 

Thanks to her rec­og­nized pro­fes­sion­al career, she was 4 years the pres­i­dent of the Colom­bian Cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er Asso­ci­a­tion, ADFC, and her man­age­ment helped it to become one of the most impor­tant asso­ci­a­tions in Latin America.

Elect­ed as co-vice pres­i­dent at IMAGO’s IAGA in 2021 she became inter­im co-pres­i­dent in 2022.

Elen Lotman, ESC

Elen Lot­man has shot numer­ous fea­ture films, shorts and doc­u­men­taries. For var­i­ous film projects she has trav­eled to Japan, Tibet, Chi­na, Thai­land, India, Nicaragua, Cos­ta Rica, Lap­land and the Russ­ian Arc­tic. Her films have won awards and have been shown in com­pe­ti­tion pro­grams of A‑class film fes­ti­vals like Camer­im­age, IDFA, Tam­pere Film Fes­ti­val, Black Nights Film Fes­ti­val, Moscow Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val etc. Most recent­ly, her full-length doc­u­men­tary Dear Moth­er was nom­i­nat­ed for Best Cin­e­matog­ra­phy at the Reel­Heart Film­fes­ti­val in Toron­to and won the Best Fea­ture Doc­u­men­tary. Full-length fic­tion ‘Good Bye Sovi­et Union’ was nom­i­nat­ed for Camer­im­age Gold­er Frog in the Direc­tors’ Debuts Com­pe­ti­tion and won the Black Nights Film Fes­ti­val audi­ence award. Her fea­ture film screen­play Con­tain­er made it to the quar­ter­fi­nal­ist at the Amer­i­can Film Acad­e­my Nicholl screen­writ­ing com­pe­ti­tion and her vir­tu­al exhi­bi­tions filmed for Tallinn Art Hall were cho­sen among best vir­tu­al exhi­bi­tions of 2020 by both New York Times and Wall­pa­per Magazine.

Elen was elect­ed co-Pres­i­dent at IEGA 2021 after serv­ing as IMAGO Board Mem­ber and also Diver­si­ty and Inclu­sion Com­mit­tee co-chair.

Mustapha Barat, ABC

Mustapha Barat, of the Brazil­ian Asso­ci­a­tion ABC, was elect­ed to the Ima­go Board at the IAGA in 2021. His diverse cinematographer’s work includes fea­tures, doc­u­men­taries and com­mer­cials, as well as exten­sive expe­ri­ence shoot­ing music videos and projects. 

Though most­ly work­ing in Brazil, and the US, where he has lived, his work has tak­en him through­out most of Latin Amer­i­ca, Cana­da, France, Italy, Bosnia and Croa­t­ia. He was elect­ed to ABC’s admin­is­tra­tive Board, as direc­tor-trea­sur­er for the 2021 – 2022 Biannual. 

At the 2021 IEGA, after the two can­di­dates to the pres­i­den­cy drew a tie, he was appoint­ed inter­im chair unan­i­mous­ly by the board until the new elec­tion at the IEGA of that same year.

Ron Johanson, OAM, ACS

Ron Johan­son OAM ACS suc­ceed­ed Kees Van Oost­rum as IMAGO President/Interim Chair in Novem­ber 2020 and his calm and con­struc­tive lead­er­ship has proven invalu­able in steer­ing the orga­ni­za­tion through the very chal­leng­ing times of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. He won elec­tions as a co-pres­i­dent in 2021. Nation­al Pres­i­dent of the ACS since 2008, stand­ing down in 2022. A liv­ing leg­end in the Aus­tralian film indus­try, Johan­son in addi­tion to hav­ing shot and direct­ed hun­dreds of tele­vi­sion com­mer­cials, music videos and doc­u­men­taries, has also lensed sev­er­al fea­ture films and TV series and has received numer­ous awards for his work, includ­ing a Cannes Lion and 2 Mobius awards.

Kees van Oostrum ASC NSC SBC AIC

The IMAGO Annu­al Gen­er­al Assem­bly in Brus­sels in March 2020 was unex­pect­ed­ly cut short by the rapid­ly dete­ri­o­rat­ing COVID-19 sit­u­a­tion and the elec­tion of a new IMAGO Pres­i­dent instead had to be real­ized through elec­tron­ic vot­ing. Kees van Oost­rum ASC NSC SBC AIC was thus elect­ed new pres­i­dent of IMAGO June 2020 after hav­ing served in the same capac­i­ty in the ASC since 2016. Dur­ing his tenure as Pres­i­dent of the ASC Van Oost­rum man­aged to expand the ASC’s activ­i­ties sig­nif­i­cant­ly, not least in the fields of work­ing con­di­tions and author­ship, and he got off to a fly­ing start at the helm of IMAGO as well, launch­ing sev­er­al ini­tia­tives imme­di­ate­ly, not least a very com­mit­ted focus on IMAGO’s web­site. Unfor­tu­nate­ly IMAGO’s activ­i­ties have been adverse­ly affect­ed by the COVID-19 sit­u­a­tion and Van Oost­rum chose to resign as pres­i­dent in Octo­ber 2020, hav­ing man­aged to accom­plish a great deal with­in a short timeframe.

Paul René Roestad FNF

The 67 year old nor­we­gian Paul René Roes­tad fnf became pres­i­dent dur­ing the Gen­er­al Assem­bly in Jerusalem with an unan­i­mous­ly vote. The Israeli Soci­ety ACT orga­nized for the first time ever an IAGA out of Europe in Jerusalem, 17 of Octo­ber 2015. He has tak­en a Mas­ter degree of Art (RCA) Film & TV, Roy­al Col­lege of Art, Lon­don Paul René Roes­tad start­ed as a news­pa­per still pho­tog­ra­ph­er, and after his film edu­ca­tion in Eng­land, start­ed as focus puller on fea­ture films and worked his way into the Nor­we­gian film indus­try. Roes­tad has been Direc­tor of pho­tog­ra­phy on around 20 fea­ture films and TV dra­ma series, in addi­tion to many dozen short films, doc­u­men­taries and com­mer­cials. Roes­tad works today as pro­duc­er, direc­tor and cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er. His pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny Lat­er­na Mag­i­ca, main­ly pro­duces doc­u­men­taries for TV. Dur­ing his time in the film indus­try, he has been Pres­i­dent of the Nor­we­gian Union of Film Work­ers, Vice Pres­i­dent in the Nor­we­gian Soci­ety of Cin­e­matog­ra­phers and Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary of IMAGO, in addi­tion to many years work­ing as Board mem­ber in the three above men­tioned orga­ni­za­tions. Roes­tad has also worked as a lec­tur­er in film and cin­e­matog­ra­phy for many years in the main film schools in Nor­way. Roes­tad arranges year­ly mas­ter class­es and edu­ca­tion­al venues in Oslo for cin­e­matog­ra­phers and film work­ers, most­ly in coop­er­a­tion with the Nor­we­gian Film Insti­tute, IMAGO and The Nor­we­gian Soci­ety of Cin­e­matog­ra­phers, among them the Imago/fnf Oslo Dig­i­tal Cin­e­ma Con­fer­ence. He also heads the doc­u­men­tary film fes­ti­val Nordic/Docs, arranged year­ly in Fredrik­stad, Nor­way. He will be office until next elec­tion tak­ing place in 2018.

Nigel Walters BSC

Nigel Wal­ters BSC was appoint­ed pres­i­dent in 2008 at the organ­i­sa­tion’s Annu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing in Ams­ter­dam where he was unan­i­mous­ly vot­ed by del­e­gates rep­re­sent­ing 1,400 cin­e­matog­ra­phers from 27 Euro­pean Nations. Dur­ing the peri­od of 7 years of Nigel’s pres­i­den­cy the asso­ciate mem­bers got the right to become full mem­bers with the same rights as any oth­er soci­ety. Aus­tralia, Japan, New Zealand, Cana­da and Israel joined imme­di­ate­ly the fed­er­a­tion as full mem­bers as soon the bill was approved by the gen­er­al assem­bly in Greece 2014. Also dur­ing this peri­od 13 more soci­eties joined the fed­er­a­tion they were: Aus­tralia ACS, Bosnia Herze­gov­ina ASBH, Cana­da CSC, New Zealand NZCS, Japan JSC, Israel ACT, Philip­pines FSC, Iran IRSC, Ire­land ISC, Roma­nia RSC, Ser­bia SAS, South Korea KSC and Turkey TSC. The Ger­man soci­ety BVK which had left the fed­er­a­tion in result of the chaot­ic finan­cial sit­u­a­tion dur­ing the book severe cri­sis returned to IMAGO. On the oth­er end it was unfor­tu­nate that the French AFC left the fed­er­a­tion in dis­agree­ment with the pol­i­tics fol­lowed with the expan­sion of the fed­er­a­tion out of the Euro­pean bor­ders and with the pol­i­cy fol­lowed for the web­site. Dur­ing Nigel’s pres­i­den­cy the rela­tion­ship with Camer­im­age was reestab­lished in full, by the init­tia­tive of Nigel Waletrs it was cre­at­ed the Balka­ns Con­fer­ence a meet­ing held at every Man­a­ki Film fes­ti­val in Bito­la, Mace­do­nia and the spon­sor­ship increased con­sid­er­ably dur­ing this peri­od. It was pub­lished 3 edi­tions of the World Cin­e­matog­ra­phers Direc­to­ry in close col­lab­o­ra­tion with the British Cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er mag­a­zine along with a sec­tion exclu­sive­ly ded­i­cat­ed to IMAGO in every issue of the mag­a­zine. For the first time in the his­to­ry of IMAGO the Gen­er­al Assem­bly was held out of Europe in Jerusalem in 2015 where Paul-René Roes­tad FNF was elect­ed pres­i­dent. In the peri­od of Nigel Wal­ters the Gen­er­al Assem­bly took place in 2008 Ams­ter­dam; 2009 Brad­ford; 2010 Tallin; 2011 Rome; 2012 Paris; 2013 Brus­sels; 2014 Greece; 2015 Jerusalem. Nigel Wal­ters leaves a great lega­cy. His efforts in defend­ing and pro­mot­ing the cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er and cin­e­matog­ra­phy was well known all over the world spread­ing the name of IMAGO amongst fel­low col­leagues, com­pa­nies, fes­ti­vals and in many oth­er events. Nigel Wal­ters has a great deal of respon­si­ble for the expan­sion and the growth of IMAGO dur­ing his presidency.

Andreas Fischer- Hansen DFF

(from 2003 to 2008)

Dur­ing an Extra­or­di­nary Gen­er­al Assem­bly in Paris on Decem­ber 13^th, 2003 Andreas Fis­ch­er- Hansen DFF has been elect­ed Ima­go Pres­i­dent with imme­di­ate effect. The posi­tions of Vice-pres­i­dent, Trea­sur­er and Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary could not be staffed imme­di­ate­ly, how­ev­er. The Gen­er­al Assem­bly allowed the new pres­i­dent to com­pose his board by March 1^st, 2004 . Tony Cos­ta AIP as Vice Pres­i­dent and Paul René Roes­tad FNF as Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary formed the IMAGO Board with Andreas Fis­ch­er- Hans en the 1^st of March 2004. The board was replaced in 15^th of Feb­ru­ary 2008 in Ams­ter­dam . Dur­ing four years on board the Fed­er­a­tion was reor­ga­nized finan­cial­ly and polit­i­cal­ly. IMAGO got bet­ter rela­tions with oth­er insti­tu­tions and com­pa­nies, pub­lished the Mod­el Con­tract for Cin­e­matog­ra­phers, solved the chaot­ic sit­u­a­tion left with the pub­li­ca­tion of the book «Mak­ing Pic­tures», got the Fed­er­a­tion involved into the new tech­nolo­gies by becom­ing mem­ber of EDCF, along with the organ­i­sa­tion of the Dig­i­tal Con­fer­ence in Oslo 2005 where was pre­sent­ed the pro­pos­al for sev­er­al frame rates for the dig­i­tal image. Organ­ised in part­ner­ship with AEC the Con­fer­ence in Huel­va about Author­ship Rights, pub­lished the DVD’s about the Dig­i­tal Con­fer­ence and the Dec­la­ra­tion of Work­ing Con­di­tions. The IMAGO web­site was renewed from scratch and com­mu­ni­ca­tion with­in mem­bers was estab­lished along with a per­ma­nent col­lab­o­ra­tion with the British Cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er Mag­a­zine. It was cre­at­ed sev­er­al IMAGO com­mit­tees to work on Edu­ca­tion­al, Tech­ni­cal and Author­ship It was signed in Frank­furt a con­tract of col­lab­o­ra­tion with the direc­tors of the Film Fes­ti­val eDIT. Dur­ing this peri­od Greece, Ukraine, Rus­sia, Esto­nia, Latvia and Slove­nia became IMAGO mem­bers. Aus­tralia became asso­ciate member. 

Tibor Vagyóczky HSC

In Brus­sels on Jan­u­ary 27, 2001 Tibor Vagyóczky HSC has been elect­ed Pres­i­dent of Ima­go for the peri­od 2001 – 2002. He assigned Peter Dubovitz HSC as Vice Pres­i­dent and Vir­gil Szilá­gyi HSC as new trea­sur­er. The Russ­ian Guild of Cin­e­matog­ra­phers RGC has been wel­comed as the 23^rd mem­ber of the fed­er­a­tion and the Brasil­ian Soci­ety of Cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er ABC became the 3^rd asso­ciate mem­ber of IMAGO. In Octo­ber 2002 the Cuban Soci­ety of Cin­e­matog­ra­phers ACF and the Mex­i­can Soci­ety of Cin­e­matog­ra­phers AMC became asso­ciate mem­bers of Ima­go and Tibor Vagyóczky has been elect­ed Ima­go Pres­i­dent for a sec­ond peri­od of 2 years, but announced his res­ig­na­tion one year lat­er. The book ”Mak­ing Pic­tures” has been released in May 2003 but caused a big deficit with the mem­bers of Ima­go. Con­se­quent­ly the Ima­go Book Office IBO in Vien­na has been closed through vote of the Annu­al Gen­er­al Assem­bly on Novem­ber 9, 2003 in Budapest. The Lithuan­ian Asso­ci­a­tion of Cin­e­matog­ra­phers LAC has been accept­ed as full mem­ber of Imago.

Gustaf Mandal FSF

In Decem­ber 1998, DoP Gustaf Man­dal FSF, for­mer pres­i­dent of the Swedish Soci­ety of Direc­tors of Pho­tog­ra­phy FSF was unan­i­mous­ly elect­ed for the IMAGO Pres­i­den­cy until the end of 2000. Dur­ing the elec­tion meet­ing in Torun, also new mem­bers from Por­tu­gal, Croa­t­ia and Bul­gar­ia have been wel­comed in the fed­er­a­tion and are now active mem­bers of IMAGO. The Indi­an Soci­ety of Cin­e­matog­ra­phers ISC became the sec­ond asso­ciate mem­ber of the fed­er­a­tion. The Bel­gian cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er Frédéric-Gérard Kaczek, board mem­ber of the Aus­tri­an Soci­ety AAC, has been elect­ed with one vote Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary of IMAGO. Matthias Maaß BVK was con­firmed as Web­mas­ter and Stig Hall­gren FSF was nom­i­nat­ed treasurer.

Tote Trenas AEC

fol­lowed as IMAGO Pres­i­dent until end of 1998. He sug­gest­ed to build up the Ima­go Web­site, that was first pre­sent­ed dur­ing MadridIm­a­gen 1997, the span­ish Fes­ti­val of Cin­e­matog­ra­phy that is also ini­ti­at­ed and orga­nized by him. Accord­ing to the ”Bavar­i­an res­o­lu­tion” (April 1997) of the gen­er­al assem­bly, all euro­pean mem­bers of IMAGO became full mem­bers, regard­less if they rep­re­sent DPs from coun­tries which are mem­ber of the Euro­pean Com­mu­ni­ty or not. IMAGO shall cer­tain­ly have ”far-reach­ing” pow­ers in the next few years: the statutes have been renewed, intro­duc­ing a new kind of asso­ciate mem­ber­ship for non-euro­pean coun­tries, allow­ing the Argen­tin­ian Soci­ety of Cin­e­matog­ra­phers ADF becom­ing the first asso­ciate mem­ber of this kind.

Harvey Harrison BSC

After the first two years with Luciano as Pres­i­dent, Har­vey Har­ri­son BSC has been elect­ed in as the new Pres­i­dent from Decem­ber 94 to Decem­ber 96. The idea of the Ima­go Book ”Mak­ing Pic­tures” was born. The Czech Repub­lic, Hun­gary, Poland, The Slo­vak Repub­lic and Switzer­land which all were no mem­ber of the Euro­pean Com­mu­ni­ty became Asso­ciate Mem­bers for that reason.

Luciano Tovoli AIC

Since the found­ing of the Fed­er­a­tion, fol­low­ing sev­er­al years of hard work spent in devel­op­ing the project, IMAGO elect­ed 
Luciano Tovoli AIC as its first bian­nu­al Pres­i­dent with Jost Vacano BVK, Har­vey Har­ri­son BSC, Robert Alazra­ki AFC and Tote Tre­nas AEC as Vice-Pres­i­dents. The four found­ing Soci­eties were joined by the Span­ish AEC and the Dan­ish DFF with­in a few weeks, then fol­lowed by Aus­tria, Bel­gium, Fin­land, The Nether­lands, Nor­way and Swe­den who became Full Members.