2017 which is now about to end was a very busy year for IMAGO. Many of the activities took place in several cities gathering thousands of people and cinematographers involved with conferences, festivals, exhibitions, equipment fairs and perhaps culminating in high spirits with the very first IMAGO International awards for Cinematography in Helsinki.
The president of IMAGO resumes in the text below the activities which took all our full attention and dedication. You can find in this articles links direct to photos and videos of the events.
IMAGO board and administration would like to give special appreciation to all member societies and to our sponsors without whom we couldn’t realize these excellent events.
By Paul René Roestad fnf, IMAGO President
In our 25th anniversary year, both the number of IMAGO´s activities and our number of members have been growing steadily. IMAGO now has 53 national Societies and close to 4.500 professional cinematographers as members.
During the last IMAGO General Assembly, the Hong Kong Society of Cinematographers, the Malaysian Society of Cinematographers, The Singapore Society of Cinematographers and the Peruvian Society of Cinematographers were voted in as IMAGO members. We welcome them all warmly!
The main 2017 IMAGO Activities
The year started with IMAGO Board members attending the BSC Expo in London early February, where we had useful talks with many of our partners.
Teaching Cinematography Conference
March: The IMAGO/HFF educational conference in Munich in cooperation with BVK and the German Film School HFF. The conference was arranged by IMAGO Education Committee, headed by Tony Costa. With more than 130 participants from all over the World, it was a great success, showing that education is a topic of great interest among our members.
Watch VIDEO with interviews
Check PHOTO GALLERY
In April IMAGO cooperated with the Slovenian Society of Cinematographers ZFS on an important conference on archiving our film heritage, in Ljubljana.
In May the IMAGO Master Class Committee arranged a new “Inspiration” Master class at the Eye Film institution in Amsterdam. The Master Class was a cooperation with NSC and SBC, headed by the Master Class Committee by Astrid Heubrandtner Vershuur AAC, Ron Johanson ACS, Jan Weincke DFF and Herman Vershuur NSC.
Check PHOTO GALLERY
Watch VIDEO interviews. With Anthony Dod Mantle DFF, BSC, ASC; Martin Gschlacht AAC; Phedon Papamichael GSC, ASC and Jeanne Lapoirie AFC
In May IMAGO cooperated with the Norwegian Society of Cinematographers for a master class with Roger Deakins CBE ASC BSC,
In September the biannual IMAGO/FNF Oslo Digital Cinema Conference were arranged for the 6th time, with more than 200 international participants.
CHECK PHOTO GALLERY HERE
But no doubt arranging the IMAGO Awards has been the greatest job in 2017. But the success of the Awards made it all worth-while. CHECK PHOTO GALLERY HERE
In last November IMAGO had a strong a valuable presence in Camerimage by being oart in several initiatives. The Framing the World, Panel disucssion in association with ASC and Gender and Diversity.
IMAGO Awards 2017
| The IMAGO Award winners, together with IMAGO partners and IMAGO organizing staff at the IMAGO Awards in Helsinki. Photo: Alejandro Lorenzo |
The very first IMAGO International Awards for Cinematography was arranged in Helsinki on October 28th, in connection with IMAGO´s 25th year Anniversary. More than 250 cinematographers and film colleagues gathered to celebrate the art of international Cinematography in this grand black tie event, the first international Awards given TO cinematographers entirely BY cinematographers.
More than 100 films from IMAGO member Societies were submitted for consideration by the IMAGO Juries, which consisted of 26 jurors, all internationally respected cinematographers from all corners of the IMAGO World.
Here are the inaugural IMAGO Awards Jury´s list of winners:
Best Cinematography in documentary films:
Łukasz Żal PSC for the film “Icon”.
Best cinematography in TV Drama:
Fabian Wagner BSC ASC for “Game of Thrones” episode “The winds of Winter”.
Best cinematography in Feature films:
Seamus McGarvey BSC ASC for “Nocturnal Animals”.
The ARRI – IMAGO Award for Emerging Talent in Cinematography:
Daniil Fomichev, for the film “How Viktor “Garlic” took Alexey “The Stud” to the nursing home”.
IMAGO International Award for Extraordinary Technical Achievement:
Jannicke Mikkelsen FNF and Joe Dunton MBE BSC.
IMAGO Award for Extraordinary Contribution to Cinematography:
Marek Zydowicz ASC, Camerimage.
IMAGO Lifetime Achievement Award:
Luciano Tovoli AIC ASC.
From left, Stephan Schenk ARRI, Maria Arenlind receiving the Award on behalf of Seamus McGarvey BSC ASC, |
After the Awards ceremony, the attending cinematographers enjoyed the dinner and following party. The rare sight of numerous cinematographers in tuxedos or evening dresses dancing all night was a wonderful experience in itself. IMAGO wishes to thank ARRI, who was the 2017 IMAGO Awards main sponsor, and all our other invaluable sponsors and partners and the hard working IMAGO organizing team, specially Tahvo Hirvonen, President of the Finnish Society of Cinematographers, Ron Johanson ACS and Tony Costa AIP, Katrin Richthofer and Louis Philippe Capelle, without whom the IMAGO Awards could not have been arranged.
The next IMAGO International Awards for Cinematography is planned to be held in Belgrade in the first quarter of 2019, and invitation to all IMAGO Societies to submit films for consideration will be sent out this Summer.
Manaki Cinematographer´s Film Festival 2017
The small Camera 300 Award went to Naum Doksevski MSC, for the short film “look at her”.
Daniil Fomichev received the Jury´s Special Mention for the film “How Viktor “Garlic” took Alexey “The Stud” to the nursing home”, and the Bronze Camera 300 Award went to Dejan Dimeski MSC for “The Frog”. The Silver Camea 300 went to Rainer Klausman BVK for the film “In The Fade”, and the main prize, the Camera 300 Award went to Marcel Rev HSC for the film “Jupiter´s Moon”. Guiseppe Rotunno AIC and Pierre L´Homme AFC was presented the Lifetime Achievement Award, Pierre L´Homme had a good master class well moderated by Nigel Walters BSC.
| The Jury and Award winners from the 38th Manaki film festival. Photo: Alexandar Kondev |
Camerimage 2017
Marek Zydowicz ASC receiving the IMAGO Award for
Extraordinary Contribution to Cinematography 2017.
Photo: Tony Costa
Both IMAGO and Camerimage was 25 years in 2017, and IMAGO was well represented during this grand festival of cinematography. For his great and important work in building up Camerimage to be the most important yearly festival for cinematographers, IMAGO Awarded Marek Zydowicz ASC the IMAGO International Award for Extraordinary Contribution to Cinematography 2017.
As Marek could not attend to the IMAGO Award ceremony in Helsinki, the IMAGO Award was presented to him during Camerimage.
ASC – IMAGO Panel
| The IMAGO-ASC Panel moderated by Stephen Lighthill ASC. Photo Paul René Roestad |
The ASC and IMAGO Technical Committees arranged a successful panel debate focusing on the importance of international cooperation between cinematographers, to meet future technical and artistic challenges. The topics discussed varied from working with equipment manufacturers to influence camera and equipment design to maximally suit cinematographers needs, to how to maintain creative control over our images in all stages of film production and the importance of improving working conditions on film productions. The two committees plan to continue to work together to support international cinematographers and to exchange knowledge and experience over the borders. The panel consisted of Steven Poster ASC, Louis Philippe Capelle SBC, Roberto Schaefer ASC AIC, Philippe Ros AFC, Stephen Lighthill ASC, Jannike Mikkelsen FNF, Joe Dunton MBE BSC, Rolf Coulanges BVK, Jacek Laskus ASC and Rachel Morrison ASC.
IMAGO and Illuminatrix focus on Diversity together with Camerimage
IMAGO´s Committee on Diversity, led by Nina Kellgren BSC and Elen Lotman ESC, cooperated with Illuminatrix and Camerimage to arrange a full day focus on Diversity with master class with acclaimed cinematographer Charlotte Bruus Christensen, and a panel debate on where we are in 2017. The panel consisted of Birgit Gudjonsdottir BVK, Charlotte Bruus Christensen, John Bailey AMPAS President, Heather Stewart BFI, Peter Mattson SFI, Warwick Thornton ACS and Rachel Morrison ASC.
The percentage of female cinematographers in film schools are many places close to 50%, but when it comes to getting assignments as directors of photography on feature films, the percentage for 2016 varies from 5% in the USA, 1,6% in the UK, to close to 25% in Scandinavia. IMAGO´s aim is to work to necessarily increase this percentage by continuing to focus on this problem for our film industry.
The debate and sessions were received with great interest, and the Cinema where it was held was again packed to the rim. Imago wish to thank Elen Lotman ESC, Nina Kellgren BSC and out partners Illuminatrix for this great and necessary focus on diversity.
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| The panel moderated by Elen Lotman ESC, timely carrying with her baby son Arthur in a sling. Photo: Paul René Roestad | Louis Philippe Capele SBC and Jacek Laskus ASC at the IMAGO-ASC Photo exhibition. Photo: Danna Kinsky |
ASC- IMAGO Photo exhibition “Framing the World”.
IMAGO and ASC held it´s first collaborative still photo exhibition during Camerimage 2017. Close to 100 photographs shot by IMAGO and ASC members were exhibited.
We are used to seeing cinematographers producing great moving images, but a great number of cinematographers are also keen and very good still photographers. The large number of visitors at this exhibition proved the great interest of also seeing how cinematographers choose their motifs when working with still images, and how they choose to frame, compose and print their images.
All the photographs from IMAGO members will be auctioned, and the full income will be donated to Save the children. You can see all photographs and detailed information about each photograph and photographer at FRAMING THE WORLD
Seeing the great popularity of this exhibition, IMAGO plan to follow this up with new still photo exhibitions with photographs from IMAGO members, also in the future.
The income from sales of photographs from the exhibition, more than 3.000.- Euros, were donated to Save the Children, Poland.
IMAGO in 2018
Because IMAGO is changing it´s fiscal year in 2018, the next IMAGO awards will be in the first quarter of 2019, planned in Belgrade, Serbia.
But 2018 is filled with many other important IMAGO activities. IMAGO is making research into how cooperation between IMAGO and national Collective Societies can benefit our member cinematographers. AGICOA, the international collecting Societies for Producers collects more than thirty million Euros a year for national or foreign transmission of films. Many national Collecting Societies automatically receives remuneration from transmitted films, also for films photographed by foreign cinematographers. A large percentage of this remuneration never reaches the cinematographers who rightly should have it, simply because the cinematographers are not correctly registered with the collecting societies. IMAGO hopes to change this in the years to come.
IMAGO is planning several international master classes in 2018, starting in Oslo in January with Bruno Delbonnel, and later in the year, a new “Inspiration” Master Class in Vienna.
In addition, we plan to cooperate with the German Film School in Munich for a session of international master classes in the Spring of 2018, and IMAGO will be strongly represented both on the BSC Expo, CineGear and the ASC International Cinematographer´s Summit in Los Angeles in June 2018.
In the Autumn IMAGO plans an international conference on working conditions in Brussels in cooperation with our member Societies and other film- and visual artist federations. Finally, we will again cooperate with Camerimage for several new conferences, master classes and symposiums of importance to international cinematographers, several of these planned in cooperation with ASC.
I use this opportunity to thank all colleagues, friends and partners for their valuable cooperation in 2017. I specially thank all IMAGO members in the IMAGO Board and many IMAGO Committees. They have all done an invaluable job for IMAGO and fellow cinematographer colleagues in 2017.
We all look forward to work to bring IMAGO and our many goals further in 2018.
The whole Board and Administration of IMAGO wish you all a good, prosperous and happy New Year!
