Manaki brothers

The Manaki brothers (Frats Manachia), Yanaki and Milton (Ianachia and Milton), were two Aromanian photography and cinema pioneers within the Balkan Peninsula and the Ottoman Empire. They were the first to bring a film camera and create a motion picture in the city of Manastir (modern-day Bitola, Republic of North Macedonia), an economic and cultural center of Ottoman Rumelia. Their first film, The Weavers, was a 60-second documentary of their grandmother spinning and weaving; this is regarded as the first motion picture shot in the Balkans. The Manaki brothers used a 35 mm Urban Bioscope camera that Yanaki imported from London in 1905. Yanaki and Milton filmed documentaries about various aspects of life in the city of Manastir. They made a name for themselves in their local photography studio and, in 1906, they received an invitation from King Carol I of Romania to participate in the Bucharest Jubilee Exhibition, where they won a gold medal for their collection and were asked to be the King's official photographers. They became the official photographers of the Ottoman Sultan and the King of Yugoslavia Alexander Karađorđević, in 1911 and 1929, respectively. In 1921 they built an outdoor cinema named Manaki and later transformed it into a movie theater, which was destroyed by a fire in 1939. The National Archive of North Macedonia preserves more than 17,000 photos and over 2,000 meters of movie film from the brothers Manaki. The brothers documented a number of historical events—the Ilinden Uprising, the Balkan Wars, World War I, and the development of Manastir as a consulate and military center of the Ottoman Empire. They left a rich legacy of important documentary value of the historical and cultural development of Southeast Europe. In their honor the Manaki Brothers Film Festival is held every year in North Macedonia. The brothers were born in the village of Avdella near the town of Grevena during the Ottoman Empire. Milton was born in 1882 and Yanaki was born in 1878.