IMAGO held its 23rd Annual General Assembly in Jerusalem, Israel, on October 17th/18th with 46 member delegates attending from as far as Australia, Japan and Canada. It was the first time in IMAGO´s history that the General Assembly was held outside Europe. The Israeli Society ACT, under their former President Idan Or and his excellent crew, hosted the event generously and perfectly.
Nigel Walters BSC steps down
This year, IMAGO president Nigel Walters BSC unfortunately come to the end of his maximum term in office, and stepped down. His eight-year presidency has been a highly successful period for IMAGO. The federation has developed immensely and has nearly doubled in size. It now has 48 member countries, with more than 4.000 member cinematographers, and has more activities and energy than ever. IMAGO started as a European federation, and developed during Nigel’s term in office to be international, today with members all over the world – a successful move forward for the Federation. The new Board of IMAGO is very grateful, and Nigel has agreed to continue to advise and work for IMAGO in different capacities, but he will naturally be excused during any rugby matches with Welsh participation.
IMAGO´s new board and president
During the General Assembly in Jerusalem a new board was elected: the new IMAGO president is Paul René Roestad FNF (Norway), and the board members are Nina Kellgren BSC (UK), Daniele Nanuzzi AIC (Italy), Pedrag Bambic SAS (Serbia), Elen Lotman ESC (Estonia), Rolf Coulanges BVK (Germany) and Ron Johanson ACS (Australia).
IMAGO’s new president, Paul René Roestad FNF had his film education in Britain (Manchester and London), and then worked his way up after starting as camera assistant and filming numerous features, TV dramas, shorts and documentaries. Today, in addition to working as a cinematographer, he also works as a producer and director in his own production company in Oslo.
He has previously been president of the Norwegian Union of Film Workers, vice president of the Norwegian Society of Cinematographers and general secretary of IMAGO, in addition to many years as a board member of the above mentioned Societies.
IMAGO – what´s it all about then?
IMAGO is a federation for the world´s national societies of cinematographers. It was initiated by Luciano Tovli AIC, and established in cooperation between the AIC (Italy), BSC (Britain), AFC (France) and BVK (Germany), in 1992. Why? The founders concluded that cinematographers needed an umbrella to bring European cinematographers together to discuss and find solutions to challenges of common interest, to promote cinematography on an international level, and to share and exchange experience and knowledge.
IMAGO has expanded greatly over the years, today with member societies all over the World. IMAGO’s aims and activities are many, and focussed on, amongst others, the following:
Promoting cinematography: the importance of cinematography to the general public, film colleagues and the cultural-political environments.
Sharing experiences: post-education, updating and training; sharing knowledge and experience between cinematographers world wide, both in technical and creative areas, and informing and updating on new technology and future developments of importance to cinematographers. Arranging master-classes, workshops and creative sessions where cinematographers meet other cinematographers to learn from each other’s experiences and knowledge.
Authorship & collecting: Informing and updating member cinematographers and societies on the development and situation of authorship for cinematographers in different countries around the world. Informing about the possibilities of membership for international cinematographers in national collecting societies.
Working conditions: monitoring the situation, experiences and developments of working conditions for cinematographers worldwide.
Monitoring and influencing technical developments: cooperating with all main camera and filmmaking equipment manufacturers to transfer the experiences from cinematographers to the manufacturers, in the belief that manufacturers utilizing cinematographers’ experiences will result in equipment better, suited to ease cinematographers’ work.
A federation, not a union
It is important to underline that even though IMAGO works to monitor and inform our members of, amongst others, authorship and working conditions, IMAGO is not a union, but a federation that works to inform and promote cinematographers’ interests in all areas. Even though the number of our members who believe cinematographers are authors/co-authors of the image, and that all cinematographers naturally should have acceptable working conditions, is rising steadily, the decision to implement or work to promote these views within their society and country or not, is up to the national societies themselves. IMAGO just works to keep its members well-informed on how other national societies handle and work with these challenges and other topics of interest cinematographic interest.
The future!
The General Assembly in Jerusalem showed that the interest in, and need for, cooperation and sharing experiences between cinematographers has never been bigger. Many countries that have not previously had a cinematographic society are forming them in order to participate in the international fellowship of cinematographers that IMAGO provides. Turkey is the latest society formed for that purpose, and the Turkish Society of Cinematographers was welcomed as IMAGO´s 49th member during the Jerusalem Assembly.
IMAGO´s Committee for Creative Technologies in Cinematography is uniting cinematographers from all the world´s corners to discuss common challenges. This involves cooperating with manufacturers to tailor-make camera equipment to maximally suit professional cinematographers, and also with cinema projection equipment manufacturers to make sure our images are projected in the best possible way. Even influencing cinema screen manufacturers to make the best screens for the projection of our images. This is just a few examples of the vastly important work they do.
IMAGO´s Master Class and Education Committees are arranging masterclasses where cinematographers from all around the world come to convey detailed information to their colleagues about their experiences and creative methods in their latest films.
IMAGO is planning two large international conferences in Brussels focussing on working conditions for cinematographers, which many fear are deteriorating, and on cinematographers’ authorship situations worldwide. Both conferences will have an extensive number of highly-qualified and influential international speakers. These were initiated by Nigel Walters and the new IMAGO administration will carry this important work forward.
The fifth IMAGO Oslo Digital Cinema Conference is took place from Oct 30th to Nov 1st, gathering cinematographers together from many countries discussing the latest creative and technical developments. The conference is arranged bi-annually in cooperation with the Norwegian Society of Cinematographers and the Norwegian Film Institute. It is regarded internationally as a high-quality arena where more than 200 cinematographers and camera manufacturers meet to discus and share knowledge in digital technical and creative areas.
Visit www.odcc.no for more information.
Keep in touch
The interest shown by cinematographers globally to meet, discuss topics of high importance, both technical and creative, is rapidly increasing. That tells us that the need for IMAGO as an international hub for information, sharing, discussion and influencing, and as a direct connection and information line between all national cinematographers societies, has never been bigger. For more information visit www.imago.org. And please like us on Facebook!
Paul René Roestad FNF
President
IMAGO
