25 October 2010

Skopje Hosting a Wine Festival

Thursday, 14 October 2010 The fourth international wine promotion festival Vino-Skop 2010 will roll out at Makedonija Square from October 13 to 17.

Zito Vardar Group will make sure that visitors are offered delicious food and baked specialties to be served on a 20-meter-long table.

Zito Vardar CEO Risto Tashev said this year more than 200.000 people are expected to show up at the event. The sales of all products will be made through “wine denars” which can be bought at Vino-Skop stands, The wine will be served in glasses, which can be bought at the entrance.

“Besides Macedonian, there will be French, Spanish and Croatian wine,” organizers said.

The concept of this event is to present the long-standing wine production, cultural inheritance and tradition through wine tasting and sale of quality wine, refreshments and lots of entertainment.

17 October 2010

Darryl Hannah - special guest at 31. ICFF "Manaki Brothers"

At today's press conference, International Cinematographers' Film Festival (ICFF) "Manaki Brothers" and Vip operator with great honour and pleasure announced the jury of the "Manaki Brothers Film Festival" (16-22 October in Bitola), and over 150 outstanding guests from the world cinema, of whom many were awarded at various film festivals from A-category, and the guest list includes the exceptional American actress Darryl Hannah.
Daryl Hannah is coming to Macedonia, Bitola to receive the Special Golden Camera 300 Award  for her outstanding contribution to the world cinema. In honour of Daryl Hannah, on October 17 the festival will screen one of her latest films, Kill Bill 2.
Hannah, from her first film role in the Fury (1978) by B. de Palma, played in the films of a series of exceptional directors who are considered the most talented authors of our time. Often she played together with the legends of world cinema, always giving an outstanding acting performance, which brought for her worldwide popularity and appreciation.
Daryl Hannah has played in over 50 titles, including Blade runner (R. Scott), Roxanne (F. Schepisi), Excitement (N. Jordan), Wall Street (O. Stone), Steel Magnolias (H. Ross). Daryl Hannah also worked with many art-house directors like Hector Babenco At Play in the Fields of the Lord, Fernando Trueba Two Much, Robert Altman The Gingerbread Man, Michael Radford Dancing at the Blue Iguana, John Sayles Casa de los babys.
In recent years, Hannah is engaged in pursuit of many social goals, activist movements and civic organizations. After all, Special Award "Golden Camera 300" for outstanding contribution to the world cinema at the 31st International Cinematographers' Film Festival "Manaki Brothers" is awarded to recognize Daryl Hannah for her contribution to the film art, but she also deserves to be praised for her contribution to all-important concerns about environmentalism, protection of bio-diversity, sustainable living and human rights of marginalized groups.
The jury will be headed by Oscar-winning Vilmos Zsigmond, cinematographer from USA / Hungary, a giant of the world cinema. Other members of the jury:
Pawel Pawlikowski, director of UK / Poland, which is known as the author of eccentric documentaries and as a double winner of the BAFTA awards. His most famous films Last Resort (2000) and My summer of love (2004) attended the ICFF "Manaki Brothers," where in 2001 he received the main prize. His last film The woman on the fifth floor, with Kristin Scott Thomas and Ethan Hawk in the main roles, is in post-production.
Christine Dolhofer, festival director from Austria, director of the Crossing Europe film Festival in Linz, one of the most important figures of the Austrian film industry.
Dominique Fury, one of the most interesting visual artists from France. The film as a art form is one of her permanent component in her works.
Natasha Braier, cinematographer from Argentina, nominated for Oscar in this year's foreign film category, and winner of the Golden Bear at Berlin last year and the "Golden Camera 300" Award for her film Milk of Sorrow.
Darko Mitrevski, director from Macedonia, whose previous films have won numerous awards in the world and a huge cinema audiences in Macedonia.
"We believe that we composed an extremely interesting jury, colourful, yet balanced and outstanding in any regard," said Labina Mitevska, manager of the Festival.
The festival will open with the movie Mothers of M. Manchevski who, along with his crew, will also be a guest of the 31st ICFF in the year 2010.
Among around 400 foreign and domestic visitors, the Festival confirms the names of Baris Ozbicer, cinematographer from Turkey, Debie Benoît, cinematographer from Belgium, regular collaborator of the cult director from France, Gaspar Noe, Martin Gschlacht, cinematographer from Austria, Giora  Bejach, cinematographer from Israel, his film Lebanon, won Golden Lion at the last Venice film festival, Daniel Bouquet, the cinematographer from the Netherlands and Katriel Schory, director of the Israeli Film Fund.
This year around 80 students will come to Bitola from the Bulgarian, German, French, and Israeli Film Academy and the Film Academy in Skopje, Macedonia.
Bitola this year will host several hundred cinematographers, directors, screenwriters, actors, filmmakers from all over the world and from Macedonia.
This year the ICFF "Manaki Brothers" will show a record number of 95 films from the latest world production in nine different programme selections. In order to achieve the festival mission that is not just aimed at celebrating the best but also to elevate the knowledge and curiosity for all the issues in relation to the film making, we will hold a number of workshops, master classes, meetings with our special guests, and round tables that will be run by the leading names in many different fields.
This year for the first time in one place will be shown all seven films from the legacy of the Brothers Manaki, and we will have opportunity to hear the Macedonia Philharmonic Orchestra with the concert "Hear film."
The Winner of the Lifetime Achievement award "Golden Camera 300" is Vilmos Zsigmont , ASC, in which honour the festival will show the You will meet tall dark stranger as closing film. Roger Pratt, BSC, cinematographer from United Kingdom signed over 40 movies, and is perhaps best known for his collaboration with Terry Gilliam is the winner of the Special Golden Camera 300 for outstanding contribution to world cinema art. In his honour the festival will show his film 12 Monkeys directed by Terry Gilliam.

08 October 2010

Construction of an elite hotel in Ohrid

Macedonian Ministry of Transport has invited a tender for the sale of a building lot owned by the Republic of Macedonia in Ohrid. A five-star hotel is envisaged to be built at the location.

The initial auction price for the lot of the total surface of 15,878 sqm is MKD 61 sqm. All interested parties can apply for the auction by October 26. The auction will be held on November 2, 2010

30 September 2010

Macedonian Sun Attractive to Foreigners

Wines of Macedonia
The Macedonian Energy Agency has received 57 requests for the construction of solar power plants. Interest in the construction of solar power plants has increased drastically, especially among foreign investors.

A year ago, Macedonia had only one solar power plant, and now it has ten, some of which have already been finished, while others are in the final construction phase.
Most potential investors (35 of them) are foreign investors or combined Macedonian and foreign companies, which want to built power plants of bigger capacity.
Information for investments in Macedonia, should be found at: http://investinmacedonia.com

26 September 2010

Fish specialties for the Dojran visitors

With a carp soup and other fish specialties, typical for the Dojran region, the Dojran citizens have celebrated the end of an successful tourism season.
Fish dishes in Dojran
"A Dojran soup of fish is made with Dojran carp, adding spices and at the end it gots it's whitey colour using eggs.", said Orhideja Georgieva, one of the participants.
With realized 141.000 nights (22% more than 2009), Dojran had the best tourism season, after the ecologic disaster. The citizens of Dojran, in fiture, will be expecting the tourists within the whole year, with cultural manifestations, like this one.
"I beleive that within time, we will contribute for the development of alternative tourism an that the old style of fishing will be turned into tourism as well", said Gligor Čabulev, major of Dojran.

Source: a1.com.mk

24 September 2010

Popova Sapka gets ready for night ski

Popova Šapka in summer
These days, Popova Sapka has started to get ready for the new ski season 2010/2011. Currently the channels of the little flows within the ski-resort are being paved, between Ceripasina and Golgota.
A square is planned to be built around the Popova Sapka hotel.
Night skiing and a new snow machine are among the improvements for the following season.
A new coffe-tea bar (Bacilo) is planned to be built, with a capacity of 300 skiers, which would work even at night during the weekend.

19 September 2010

Bing is a Fan

The Macedonian town of Debar found itself on the front page of Microsoft's search engine "Bing" www.bing.com. As Bing explained, the beautiful lake on the photo is artificial lake "Spilje" near the town of Debar."Apart from the natural beatuies around the city of Debar, the city itself is very old and has been a part of the Roman and the Ottoman empires," explains Bing.
Bing - Debar lake

For the residents of Debar, Bing's front page was the best promo the city could have received. 
Bing's monthly visits have reached to around 300 million. This also isn't the first time Bing has shown photos of Macedonia.

13 September 2010

09 September 2010

Macedonia marks 19 years of independence

Macedonia (September 8th) is marking 19 years of its independence Wednesday (September 8th). During a referendum on September 8th 1991, 95% of Macedonians voted in favour of independence. Macedonia has established diplomatic relations with 160 countries so far and has been recognised under its constitutional name by 125 states. On the eve of the holiday, Parliament Speaker Trajko Veljanovski hosted a reception, saying Macedonia remains committed to its EU and NATO bids and to efforts to resolve its long-standing name dispute with Greece.

05 September 2010

Reporters from Czech Republic in Ohrid

Group of Czech reporters have arrived in Macedonia yesterday, and will stay until September 8th. The group is about to visit Ohrid, Struga, Galicica, Mavrovo and Skopje. Their visit is discover the tourism potential of Macedonia. The visit is being organized by the Economic promotor of Macedonia in the Czech Republic & Slovakia, Danco Vidov, and by the Agency for Promotion & Support of tourism.

-Our goal is to make the interest for the Czech tourist to visit Macedonia, so the country can finaly enter the tourist map of the Czech touroperators, - mentioned Vidov for MIA.