By Paul René Roestad, Imago President

The IMAGO International Award for Cinematography 2017

Almost 100 films between features, Tv-dramas and documentaries from all corners of the World have so far been nominated by IMAGO´s member Societies to be considered by the IMAGO Award Juries. The IMAGO juries will start their work in September, and will have their final nominations for the IMAGO International Award for Cinematography ready in good time for the big day of celebrations and IMAGO Awards ceremony on October 28th where more than 250 cinematographers, partners and film colleagues will gather in Helsinki, Finland, to celebrate not only the art of international cinematography, but also IMAGO´s 25th Anniversary.

After the Awards gala and ceremony, there will be drinks and dinner, and the party will hopefully go on all night.

IMAGO thanks our important sponsor partners, without whom we would not have been able to arrange this important Awards.
This is a big lift for IMAGO, and we could not have done this without the great support of IMAGO´s Partners. ARRI is the main IMAGO Awards Sponsor partner, together with RED, SONY, Canon, Panasonic, Drylab, Leica/CW-Sonderoptics, TV-Tools Finland, Angel Films/Dagsljus, Valofirma, Mediatrade and Post Control and more are amongst the important partners in this grand black tie important event.
Absolutely essential for IMAGO and for the success of our celebration is the great assistance, work and planning being done by the Finnish Society of Cinematographers FSC and their President Tahvo Hirvonen FSC, and not least great and important work is done by the IMAGO Awards Committee, headed by Ron Johanson ACS and Tony Costa AIP.

The IMAGO Awards are designed and hand made by acclaimed Swedish glass designer Åsa Jungnelius.

The IMAGO Awards Venue:
The IMAGO Awards and celebration will take place at Hanaholmen Hotel and Conference Center in Helsinki, located on a beautiful half island just outside the center of Helsinki. A newly renovated building with swimming pool, restaurants, cinema, for meetings, good space for our partners to present themselves, and perfect for the IMAGO Awards and celebration.

Photo: Hanaholmen/Robert Lindström©

More information about the IMAGO International Awards for Cinematography can be found here: www.imagoawards.org .

The IMAGO/FNF Oslo Digital Cinema Conference

IMAGO´s Conference on new digital production methods and focusing on new equipment and software will be arranged on September 8th to 10th at the Norwegian Film Institute in Oslo.
More than 200 cinematographers and experts from around the World will gather to exchange experiences, to learn and to discuss. The IMAGO Oslo Digital Cinema Conference is regarded as one of the most useful of it´s kind in the World.
Most major camera manufacturers will be there to inform the participants about their latest developments, their thoughts for the future, and to receive feedback from cinematographer´s experiences. One of the main topics this year will be cinematographer´s experiences with ACES in post production, and Alex Forsythe, one of the central technical designers of ACES, will attend to discuss practical experiences, and to receive feedback from ACES users.
Other topics was the challenges of Virtual reality and VFX, HDR, new LED Cinema Screens, future generation imaging, new recording techniques, high sensitive cameras and the future impact of 8K Sensors, and lectures on lenses for big format cameras, in addition to master classes with Luciano Tovoli ASC AIC and Luca Bigazzi.
Check www.imago.org  for more information.

The 38th Manaki Brothers International Cinematographer´s Film Festival
September 23rd to 30th.

Cinematographers attending the IMAGO General Assembly in Bitola 2016

The world´s oldest cinematographer´s film festival will be held in Bitola, Macedonia, on September 23rd to 30th. Not only is Bitola and it´s surroundings truly beautiful, so visiting Bitola is an experience in itself, but visiting during the Manaki Brothers International Cinematographer´s Film Festival means seeing a great selection of films, meeting international cinematographers and other colleagues. The festival is of course especially important for the audience from the South –East Europe and Balkans to get acquaintance with the art and importance of cinematography, but the festival should be on every international cinematographer´s agenda. The festival is arranged by the Macedonian Film Professional´s Association, and the festival´s director, Blagoja Kunovski with his good team, fills the program with high standard master classes, a top quality selection of international films, and not least the social aspect and networking during the festival is important for all attending.
IMAGO will be as usual be strongly represented during the 2017 Manaki film festival, September 23rd to 30th.

Camerimage 2017 11th to 18th of November

Camerimage Bygdoszcs, Opera Nova (Photo: Paul René Roestad)
Camerimage celebrates it´s 25th anniversary in 2017, and will be arranged from 11th to 18th of November in Bygdoszcs, Poland. During the 25 years it has existed, few other arrangements have succeeded so much in international focus on cinematography as Camerimage. The great and important job for all cinematographers done by the festival director Marek Żydowicz and his great team led by Kazik Suwala, has been and is vastly impressive.
IMAGO will arrange several conferences at Camerimage this year, among those are master classes and a new conference on gender and diversity. The work to inspire more women to choose cinematography as their profession is important to IMAGO and to all international cinematographers, and this work will continue as one of IMAGO´s priorities.
IMAGO will also arrange the

Photo Exhibition at Camerimage: “IMAGO 25 years – 50 photographs”

Both Camerimage and IMAGO celebrates our 25th anniversary in 2017, and IMAGO wishes to focus on the visual artistic eye of cinematographer members from around the World during Camerimage. Creating images is the art and profession of cinematographers, many cinematographers are also creators of great still images, and we believe the public will take interest in seeing how cinematographers work with visual artistry in artistic composition, visual motifs, contrast, colour or black and white when it comes to still images.
The exhibition is a cooperation between ASC and IMAGO where a great selection of photographs from both ASC members and IMAGO members will be exhibited.
After the exhibition at Camerimage, the photographs from IMAGO members will be auctioned, and the income will be donated to a Polish children´s charity.