Back to the main competition – we already know how the six jury members will choose their favorite film. During the jury’s first press conference they tried to define their vision of cinematographer’s work as an artist and their vision of the jury’s work. Let us add that besides Franz Rath, it is the first time in the festival jury, for the all the members. Rath advised them to “retain the freshness of seeing and to evaluate each film as it was the first film that they saw in their whole life”.

All the jury members emphasized that they will base their assessment on the question of what is the role of the visual side of the film, and does it play a serving role to the plot or try to disturb the balance between certain elements of the film art.

The large part of the discussion with the conference guests was about the definition of the originality in the cinema and about the question of how the cultural background influence the cinematographers visions. The originality of a film will be another item that would lead them to their verdict. Declay Quinn said that: “for the world’s cinema the different cultural perspectives that penetrate one another, maintaining the differences and not blurring them, are the most important things.” According to him it is related with the question of the artistic freshness in the movie. Affonso Beato described the originality as “something more than just something new. New things are always a consequence of a certain process, an evolution that happens in the culture. As for the originality, it escapes from all definitions, it destroys the status quo.”
The German critic Karl Prümm – the only “non – filmmaker” in the jury – underlined, how important for him as the spectator, is the way that the cinematographers shape the form, care for the details, for the materiality of the film. “I’m especially interested in the thing that distinguishes the director of the scene from the director of the image, the process of transforming into image.”

The jury members declared that they will assess the film in 1 to 10 points scale. After watching the first five movies they will exchange their first thoughts. There are 15 films from all over the world in the main competition.

Another important event on Monday is the screening of the film Sign - a kind of film epitaph created by a son in tribute to his father. This film is a documentary about the life of a Polish cinematographer Stanisław Latałło, who died in Himalayas in 1974 in the age of 29. Despite his young age, he managed to work with Zanussi and Konwicki, and that is the reason why he was called “a future of Polish cinematography”. Sign is an attempt of finding the traces of the director Marcin Latałło’s father. Marcin is a valued filmmaker, the collaborator of Wajda, Holland and Kieślowski. The screening of Sign and the coincidental retrospective of Stanisław Latałło’s films in the Charlie cinema is an example of CAMERIMAGE politics, that intends to present the greatest pieces of our cinematography to the festival’s guests from all over the world.

One word about one of the two most important Sunday events. One says that George Clooney’s Good Night And Good Luck with Robert Elswit cinematographyis a strong candidate for an Oscar this year. The film takes us back to the middle 50s in the USA. The plot tells a story of a war, that a CBS TV journalist Edward R. Murrow declared to the famous senator Joseph McCarthy. Clooney’s film is considered as independent production in the USA. The black-and-white movie cost only 7 million dollars and was shot in 30 days. It was warmly welcomed in the home country, but not only there. On the Venice Festival it was awarded with three prestigious awards (best actor, best screenplay and the FIPRESCI award).

Robert Elswit is a guest on CAMERIMAGE Festival. During his press conference he talked about his work on the film. He revealed that creator of the Good Night and Good Luck had reached to archives of CBS with a real transcripts of Murrow’s programs. Elswit also talked about the reasons of realizing the film in white and black colors. One of the main cause for it, was a willingness to combine modern tape with old archives of CBS, to create common atmosphere of the story. We should add, that the film was shot on the color tape and just afterwards the tape was transformed into white and black one.

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