Yanaki Manaki

Biography

Giannakis (Ioannis) Manakis (Aromanian: Ianachia Manachia, Greek: Γιαννάκης Μανάκης, 1878–1954) was a pioneering photographer and cinematographer, who, together with his brother, Miltos, are considered the “Lumier brothers of the Balkans”.

He born in Avdella, Grevena, a Vlach village in Pindos (Ottoman Empire - today Greece). Attended the high school of Monastir (present-day Bitola), where he received a diploma as a teacher and painter (tracery/calligraphy). In 1898 he opened his first photography studio in Ioannina, while also working as a teacher. In 1904, the brothers moved to Monastir, where their studio became famous throughout the Balkans. In 1905, during a trip to London, he bought a Bioscope camera (serial number 300). With it, they shot the first film in the Balkans, “The Weavers,” starring their 114-year-old grandmother. They were official photographers of the Ottoman Sultan and the King of Yugoslavia, and in 1906 they won a gold medal at a world exhibition in Romania.

Their Work

The Manaki brothers’ archive includes approximately 67 short films and over 17,000 photographs, which record historical events (e.g. the Young Turk revolution, the Balkan Wars) and the daily life of the people of Macedonia and Epirus.

At the end of his life, Giannakis Manakis settled in Thessaloniki, where he lived humbly and died in 1954. In their honor, the Manaki Brothers International Film Festival is organized annually in Bitola, while Theodoros Angelopoulos' film, "The Gaze of Ulysses", is inspired by the search for their lost films.