The International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography CAMERIMAGE is not only about wonderful films and fantastic workshops, seminars, lectures or exhibitions. It is also a place where you can meet professionals from around the world who probably shot, edited or directed the films that made you love cinema, or have the potential to do that for the future generations of movie lovers. Here is the first of a few newsletters that we will send out to introduce the phenomenal guests of Camerimage 2013 - the true celebrities of our Festival.

SEAN BOBBITT

British cinematographer, born in 1958 in USA, member of the British Society of Cinematographers. He started his professional career as a news cameraman, which had a major impact on his way of visual storytelling through distinct, disquietingly real worlds created in front of the camera. His cinematography is always surprising, for in each movie he uses different means to convey a given mood of the story being told. He likes to saturate colors and frame them in a way that makes his films memorable. In Shame and Hunger he created images that were both brutally incisive and beautiful, in Oldboy, Byzantium and The Place Beyond the Pines he conveyed emotions through cinematography that was disquieting and poignant at the same time, and his work in Hysteria and 12 Years a Slave was an incredibly refined approach to visual storytelling. He collaborated with Steve McQueen and Spike Lee, among many others, and was nominated for BAFTA and BIFA awards. This will be his fifth time as Camerimage guest.

*****

ADAM HOLENDER

One of the most acclaimed Polish cinematographers, working in Hollywood for a few decades now. Graduated from Łódź Film School in 1964, after only four years he was already working on the set of Oscar-nominated Midnight Cowboy directed by John Schlesinger. Through his camera, he weaves American modernity and dynamism with European culture's sumptuousness and experience. In Midnight Cowboy he made New York's streets dark and ominous, in To Kill a Priest he created distressing interiors and greyish exteriors, and he infused Smoke, Brooklyn Boogie and The Devil and Daniel Webster with colorful images on the line of dreams and reality. He collaborated with the greatest stars - Paul Newman, Anthony Hopkins, Ed Harris, Alec Baldwin, Wayne Wang, Agnieszka Holland. He is a long-standing guest of Camerimage Film Festival, its distinguished laureate and often a juror.

*****

ED LACHMAN

Ed Lachman was born in 1948, he is a distinguished American cinematographer and member of ASC. Throughout his career, he has worked on feature films, documentaries and TV movies. He started in the film industry as an assistant of Vittorio Storaro and Sven Nykvist, learning from these masters the extraordinary sensitivity for human emotions, and ways to incorporate them into images. He displayed those skills beautifully in Sofia Coppola'sThe Virgin Suicides, Steven Soderbergh'sErin Brockovich, Pat O'Connor'sSweet November and Todd Haynes'Far from Heaven (Oscar nomination for Lachman) and I'm not there. In films he has worked on one can see all the emotions and feelings of the characters shown by means of unobtrusive close-ups of faces, eyes, hands, silhouetted movement, gestures or the sunrays caught in hair. Ed Lachman is a frequent guest of Camerimage festival - as a juror, award-winner or simply a cinephile. In 2011, he received the Cinematographer-Director Duo award for his collaboration with Todd Haynes

*****

PHEDON PAPAMICHAEL

Greek cinematographer, member of ASC. He started as a photojournalist in New York in 1983, but then he moved into the realm of cinema. He works with the greatest Hollywood filmmakers - Alexander Payne (Sideways, The Descendants), Diane Keaton (Unstrung Heroes), Judd Apatow (This is 40), George Clooney (The Ides of March), as well as with independent authors from Europe (Nana Dzhordzhadze's 27 Missing Kisses, Wim Wenders' The Million Dollar Hotel). His visual sensitivity can be therefore transcribed into both a puritan mood of the American political campaign, and spontaneous feel of a small town in Eastern Europe. He made commercials, music videos and feature films, including a few Oscar-nominated ones. His films were selected for Camerimage Main Competition a couple of times. He also sat on the Festival juries and led workshops for both young and experienced cinematographers.

*****

MICHAEL SERESIN

Born in New Zealand, Michael Seresin, member of BSC, at first started working for Pacific Film in New Zealand, but soon left the company to pursue a career as a freelancer in Europe. He worked as a cameraman and director in advertisements and music videos and won over 40 advertising awards. Later he worked mainly in feature films like Alan Parker'sBirdy, Angel Heart and The Life of David Gale or Alfonso Cuaron'sHarry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. He directed feature film Homeboy with Mickey Rourke and Christopher Walken, and founded Seresin Estate, a winery and olive plantation in New Zealand. In 2007, he received the Cinematographer-Director Duo award for his collaboration with Alan Parker.

*****

TOM STERN

American cinematographer who is both a member of ASC and FSC. He is best known for his long and fruitful collaboration with Clint Eastwood - they have made 12 films together, including Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby and Flags of Our Fathers. He also worked on Gary Ross'The Hunger Games and Romance & Cigarettes, directed by this year's Camerimage special guest, John Turturro. Stern's cinematography and the way of capturing characters in front of the camera, are recognized throughout the world, and all of his films are fervently discussed - for their visual storytelling, mood or the way the characters are shown, as Stern always finds individual traits in them. His images are intriguing - they are mysterious, disquieting, including enigmatic looks of characters who, as the story progresses, show the viewers their true colors.