ANA JAKIMSKA: WHEN I START TO WORK ON SOMETHING, I ASK MYSELF – IS THIS WORTH THE TIME THAT PEOPLE WILL SPEND WATCHING IT?

Their personal qualities brought them great professional success. These are the stories of our successful people that we publish in the category “Up the ladder of success”. Fakulteti.mk and the Educational Center of “Pivara Skopje” show you the way to the stars through the “Skills for Success” training.

Ana Jakimska is our director. “The Children Will Come”, “Blue Hour”, “Neon Hearts”, “Midnight Train”, “No Ghosts Abroad” are just some of her films that have been recognized by the audience and awarded. Ana Jakimska graduated from the Department of General and Comparative Literature at the Faculty of Philology “Blaze Koneski”, but she also graduated Film Directing from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts at the University “St. Cyril and Methodius” – Skopje. She holds a master’s degree from Goldsmiths, University of London.

In the category “Up the ladder of success”, we talk to Jakimska about her beginnings, successes, challenges…

Beginnings as a journalist

“I always loved to read. My mother and father were graduates of the Faculty of Philology in Skopje and all the homes we lived in throughout the years while I was growing up were full of books, newspapers, and magazines. Due to the frequent moves, I did not have long friendships and often spent my days at home, reading or watching TV for hours. When the time came for college, I had no doubt that I wanted to enroll in the Department of General and Comparative Literature. I spent the most wonderful four years there, studying world literature in a social context and developing a special understanding of the relationship between fiction and the reality around us. After a conversation with one of the professors at the department, I decided to continue studying fiction in another art form – film. That’s how I enrolled in the Department of Film and TV Directing at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Skopje. Years later, I got a master’s degree in Directing Fiction at Goldsmiths, University of London in Great Britain,” is how Anna began her story that slowly leads her up the ladder of success.

To our surprise, she told us that she first started writing professionally as a journalist in the daily newspaper “Shpitz”.

“I had a desk in a small office in the “Mavrovka” Shopping Center and colleagues around me who looked like they had the most fun job in the world covering on-site daily events. I worked in the world news editorial office, so my work was largely a selection of news from major world agencies and their translation and adaptation into Macedonian. But in a short time, I realized that journalism fulfills only one part of what I want to do in life – writing, but not in the way I would like. Journalism deals with reality as we see it on the surface – with the consequences, with the facts, with the already completed act. What I wanted to write was fiction. In the early 2000s I was writing short stories and posting them on a blog. I loved and still love writing prose, but creating fiction this way is a lonely process. I missed the urgency and excitement of the newsroom, the waiting of the photojournalists who would burst into the office with cards full of material, the impatience of the editors to review everything before other newspapers do the same, the quick thinking and the race against time. After I started studying directing at the FDU, I wrote the first screenplay for a short film and when I first entered production with a film crew, I found a home in this form”, director Jakimska tells us.

First film in 2016

When asked what her first work experience was on film, she told us that it was her first professional short film, “The Children Will Come”, which she shot in 2016 as a graduation film at the Department of Film and TV Directing.

“Even though it was a student film, I had the support of the Film Agency as a rookie and could afford to dream about locations, costumes and technical equipment that would not have been possible on the “shoestring” budgets of student crews. I was fortunate to work with a crew that fully invested in the creation of this film. I learned a lot from each of them and I will always be grateful to them”, shares Ana.

We also asked her what made her stand out as a name and how her career began to take off, but she indicated that she couldn’t choose the starting point of her success.

“In my early youth I moved really often, both locationally and professionally, so I cannot choose one point from which everything started – there are many beginnings and stories that developed in different ways, more or less successfully. If we talk about the first significant successes in the film industry, I will mention the participation in the film festival in Shanghai, which happened at the very beginning of my career as a director and opened many doors for me. But short films rarely reach a wider audience at home, no matter how much popularity they gain at film festivals around the world. In contrast, music videos as a form travel much more easily. I think that the video I recorded for the hit track “The 80s” by PMG Kolektiv made me recognizable in Skopje. I bow to Mirko for everything he did for the culture in Skopje. His spirit will always be an integral part of building a capital city that stands proudly”, says Ana, and adds that her success so far is due to optimism and the joy of the new challenges.

“Every ‘no’ is a new beginning and, as strange as it sounds, freedom. Freedom is the basis of everything,” she underlines.

I am currently working on a short film

In 2018, together with her best friend Branko, they founded the production company “Suteren Studio”. They decided to build a studio that would bring the film into commercial production and which work would be guided by the principles of film art. In the past six years, production has been growing and their portfolio of completed projects has been increasing: TV commercials, unconventional corporate videos, interviews, and campaigns.

“After I finished my studies in London and returned to Skopje, we started developing a new digital product that would be a completely new way of presenting commercial content,” shares Ana.

What has pushed her to this point and what strongly motivates her, she says, stems from her responsibility to the people around her, her family, and friends, but also the people in the city she lives in, and beyond.

“When I start to work on something, I ask myself – is this worth the time people will spend watching it? Will it tell them something important for them and for our time? I don’t always make an accurate assessment, but I always start with this thought. I thank all my loved ones for being with me through all of this, even when the judgment was wrong. I am currently working on a short film that explores the theme of the artist’s responsibility to his/her subject, versus the ambition to succeed within the established frameworks of behavior in the art industry. This is a theme that arose from my stay in London, where I felt that as a storyteller I was reaching for themes and tropes that the Western view expects from someone coming from an exotic country like Macedonia. This idea is also the basis of the script for my debut feature film. At the same time, we are working on the new product of “Suteren Studio”, and we are excited about the changes that are coming in the commercial production” Jakimska hinted.

Sanja Jachevska