They were the first to bring a film camera and create a motion picture in the city of Manastir (modern-day Bitola, Republic of North Macedonia), an economic and cultural center of Ottoman Rumelia.

[2] Their first film, The Weavers, was a 60-second documentary of their grandmother spinning and weaving;[3] this is regarded as the first motion picture shot in the Balkans.

[9] The National Archive of North Macedonia preserves more than 17,000 photos and over 2,000 meters of movie film from the brothers Manaki.

[6] They left a rich legacy of important documentary value of the historical and cultural development of Southeast Europe.

[11] The brothers were born in the village of Avdella near the town of Grevena, Vilayet of Manastir, Ottoman Empire.

[14] Their father, Dimitrios, joined the movement,[15] and to some extent the brothers developed a sense of Aromanian identity.

Yanaki was employed as an art teacher in a Romanian school in Yanya when he opened his first photographic studio in 1898.

Yanaki, after many negotiations, purchased a plot of land on the main street of the capital of the Rumelia Eyalet within Vilayet of Manastir—Manastir.

In 1904 both brothers started to work on the construction of their independent workshop, which they named Atelier for Photographic Art.

Milton initially worked as a cleaner in the studio, maintaining the equipment, but later he studied photography and quickly showed expertise.

It is also believed that Milton helped transport arms from Albania to Macedonia for the 2nd Revolutionary Committee of Bitola.

Yanaki was interested and while traveling through Paris and Vienna, he stopped in England to buy a Bioscope 300 film camera from Charles Urban Trading Company.

[21] King Carol I invited them to visit Romania for a second time to participate in the Bucharest Jubilee Exhibition, a photographic contest, held from the fifth to the twelfth of November 1906.

Milton and Yanaki took over 200 photographs of Serbian officers and soldiers and important political figures of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.

When the Serbian army withdrew from Bitola, Bulgarian officers inspected the brothers' atelier and found three shotguns, and although Milton had purchased these, Yanaki was interned in Bulgaria.

Milton produced a wide range of portraits of Bulgarian, German, Serbian, French, and Italian officers and soldiers as well as Russian volunteers.

They bought а film projector and made an outdoor cinema on the main street Shirok Sokak.

In 1935, Milton married fellow Aromanian Vasiliki Dauka and their son Leonid was born on 10 May of the same year.

Yanaki left the field of photography in 1935 and moved to Thessaloniki, Greece, where he remained for the rest of his life.

The Organization of Yugoslav Film Makers made Milton an honored member in 1957 for being the first filmmaker in the region.