The powerful women of Manaki: Bojana Andrikj SA 

Bojana Andrikj SAS is one of the most prominent Serbian cinematographers, who for more than two decades has worked tirelessly to enrich Serbian film and television production, with important and impressive projects.  She was born in 1983 and graduated from the Department of Film and TV Camera at the Academy of Arts in Belgrade in 2007.  

“My professor, who has worked on 70 films, saw that my energy was completely absorbed by the film. I told him that film was my life and that this is what I want to do” Andrikj said as she took part in the “Voices Giving Strength” debate at the 44th edition of the International Cinematographers’ Film Festival “Manaki Brothers”.  

She is vice president of the Serbian Association of Cinematographers (SAS) and also co-vice president of the International Federation of Cinematographers (IMAGO) – and she is an integral part of Imago’s Diversity and Inclusiveness Committee and a full member of Imago’s Technical Committee, ITC. 

Her portfolio includes a variety of film, video and TV projects. Feature films include the comedy Little Buddho /Mali Budo (2014), the action melodrama with comic scenes The Samurai in Autumn / Jesen samuraja (2016), the film about becoming mature Cut / REŽI (2019), the thriller Trail of the Beast / Trag divljači (2022), and she is currently working on the psychological thriller Follow Me and of the ecranisation of the 1957 novel Picnic.  

The number of TV series episodes is extensive. She has worked on over 370 episodes of the rich Serbian TV production, on the family melodrama Wrong Man / Pogresan covjek between 2018 and 2019, the crime series My Father’s Killers / Ubice mog oca (2020), the mysterious melodrama Professor Miskovic’s Notebook / Beleznica profesora Miskovica (2021), the teenage In Clinch / U klincu (2022) and the comic drama Sweet Sorrow / Sunce mamino (2023).  

 She gained experience in documentaries, firstly, by filming the Serbian iteration of the reality series Survivor, and then the documentary TV series ER. For five years she worked on the RHP programme and made documentaries for VICE in Serbia. This year she is also working on the documentary Dreamers/Sanjalice, a film about the first female Yugoslav rock and roll band in the mid-1960s.   

She took part in numerous professional panels and seminars at the ICFF “Manaki Brothers”, Camerimage, Oslo Cine Digital Conference, Paris Microsalon, Madrid Micro salon and other film festivals.  

 At the round table “Voices Giving Strength”, Andrikj stressed that the number of Balkan female cinematographers is low, i.e. that from the former Yugoslav countries, Slovenia and Croatia do not have a single female cinematographer. In Bosnia and Herzegovina there are two women, but they are television cinematographers, in Serbia there are four, and in Macedonia two.  

At the last year’s edition of the ICFF “Manaki Brothers”, Andrikj held a presentation titled “Set Lighting”, supported by Arri. 

At the round table “Voices Giving Strength”, Bojana Andric stressed that the number of Balkan female cinematographers is low, i.e. that from the former Yugoslav countries, *in their national societies* Slovenia do not have a single female cinematographer, *Croatia has one who lives abroad,* In Bosnia and Herzegovina there are two women, but they are television cinematographers, in Serbia there are four, and in Macedonia two *not working on a feature films as DPs*.