The Main Competition is the most important aspect of Plus Camerimage; it is a review of the most interesting cinematographers' achievements of the previous year, and a prestigious competition, composed of emotional, narrative and visual exhilarations, with Golden Frog being its main award. The task of the International Jury, headed this year by Roger Donaldson, will be to choose the winners of the Main Competition. Donaldson is an internationally acclaimed director who has been working for almost four decades, and during his distinguished career has created movies in different genres, on various continents, and with the collaboration of distinguished actors and cinematographers.

Roger Donaldson
Anthony Hopkins, Kevin Costner, Al Pacino, Ben Kingsley, Sissy Spacek, Mel Gibson, Robin Williams, Nicolas Cage, Gene Hackman, Willem Dafoe, Daniel Day-Lewis, Laurence Olivier - the actors with whom he has worked have always created marvelous roles that enhanced the overall quality of a given film. Australia-born, Donaldson left his home at 19 for New Zealand to find peace from the overwhelming issue of the Vietnam War. He had been dreaming of creating “moving images" since his early childhood. He wanted to help the viewers forget about the mundane everyday life, simultaneously immersing them in many reflections about contemporary times.

Shooting his films in a dynamic, entertaining manner, Donaldson has always tried to discuss the matters that were crucial to his vision of the world. In “Sleeping Dogs" he told a story of an individual opposing a totalitarian system of oppression; in “Thirteen Days" he reconstructed the hottest events of the Cuban Missile Crisis that put the world on the verge of a nuclear holocaust; in “The World's Fastest Indian" he took the life story of speedster Burt Munro, and made a film about the need of having and fulfilling one's dreams; in “The Recruit" he used CIA agents as a means of focusing on the thin line between reality and madness.

Still from "Sleeping Dogs"
Roger Donaldson started his professional career as a geologist and photographer, though he quickly and smoothly made the transition into the film industry. There was one problem, though - New Zealand did not have one, just television. Donaldson, then, gathered experience and recognition by shooting TV films and shows, and made (also partly produced) “Sleeping Dogs", the film that started the so-called Kiwi Renaissance and was a first step in creating the New Zealand Film Commission. Donaldson then made another film - “Smash Palace", an emotionally complex drama about a man on the verge of madness, and as a result was noticed by famed international producer, Dino De Laurentis. Since the day he walked on the set of “The Bounty", Roger Donaldson has continuously created subsequent cinematic worlds in which the viewers could lose themselves.

John Alcott, Andrzej Bartkowiak, Michael Seresin, Peter Menzies Jr., David Gribble, Arthur Ibbetson, Dean Semler, Michael Coulter, Stuart Dryburgh, David Tattersall - Roger Donaldson's cinematographers work closely with him to give the stories a special “movie flair" that elevates them into a higher level of entertainment. He has always been fully aware of all the qualities of the film medium which he chooses for making his visions widely accesible. He bases his stories in reality, but at the same time he makes them more dramatic, accentuating the most intriguing issues they are connected with. And even if he works with popular genres - horror movie (“Species"), heist movie (“The Bank Job") - the viewers know that they have a special, multilayered treat waiting for them.

Still from "The World's Fastest Indian"
Roger Donaldson tries not to be pigeonholed into one type of cinema, though it can be justly stated that in most of his films, he tells about people finding courage to face their weaknesses, and to overcome all the political, social and spiritual obstacles. In this way built a reputation of being an accomplished craftsman who can adapt each and every idea for the silver screen; who makes the work on the set calm, fluent and professional. To sum up, Roger Donaldson is the type of leader who shall definitely make the work of the Jury of the Main Competition more prestigious and effective.