Manos Zacharias — Director | Biography, Movies & Career

Biography

Emmanuel "Manos" Zacharias (Greek: Εμμανουήλ «Μάνος» Ζαχαρίας; born 9 July 1922) is a Greek film director, cinematographer and actor, who was active in Greek and Soviet cinema.

Determined to become a cinematographer, he enrolled in IDHEC (Institut des Hautes Etudes Cinematographiques) and at the same time studied History of Art at the Sorbonne. In 1947, the decision was made by the KKE to centrally collect cinematographic and photographic equipment and to allocate it accordingly to cover the political-military needs of the time. In the spring of 1948, with two wind-up cinematographic cameras, a 35 mm and a 16 "Payar", as well as boxes of film, he crossed the Yugoslav border and entered Greece illegally. Thus, in 1948, the photo-film crew was founded and joined the force of the Enlightenment Department of the General Headquarters of the DSE. Their meeting took place in Pefkofyto in eastern Gramos. The team was charged with filming newsreels and taking photographs of the life and activities of the DSE. The films were transported abroad for technical processing with the aim of their distribution.

After Gramos, in October 1949, Manos Zacharias found himself a political refugee in Tashkent where he studied at the State Theater Institute. His dream, however, remained cinema. He took part in a pan-Soviet competition for cinema studies, qualified - as the only non-Soviet citizen - and ended up in Moscow and the Mecca of Soviet cinema, "Mosfilm". His teachers were some of the leading figures of Soviet cinema, such as Mikhail Rom, Alexander Dovzhenko and Sergei Yutkevich. After completing the school, he stayed at the "Mosfilm" studios and made 10 films. In parallel with his career on the film sets, he also stood out for his administrative skills, which were highlighted through responsible and creative positions. He initially started as an assistant to Mikhail Rom and after the death of his teacher, he succeeded him as the artistic director of the Third Studio of Mosfilm. In 1979, he returned to Greece and in 1982, following a proposal by Melina Mercouri, he undertook to reform the operating framework of Greek cinema. From 1982 and for the next seven years he served as a Cinematography Advisor to the Ministry of Culture and from 1987 as President of the Greek Cinema Center. After his resignation, he was involved in film productions ("Balada gia ena daemona" by Nikos Koundouros, "Tera Incognita" by Yannis Typaldos). In 1994 he took over as head of the European Programs Monitoring Office of ERT S.A., while in the following years, he was an advisor to the President of ERT on cinematography issues.