The Manakia Brothers

A mysterious photograph of my great grandparents taken in the 1920’s somewhere in the Balkans reminds me of two Aromanian photographers, famous in the region at the time – Milton and Ianake Manakia. Trying to verify the assumption that my great grandparents, also of Aromanian origin, were indeed photographed by the two brothers, I go on a journey through Romania – Bulgaria – Macedonia – Greece trying to recompose the life-story of the two people who became the very first filmmakers in the region, devoted documentarists of the most dramatic changes that reshaped the face of the Balkans in the first part of the XX th century.