Radio mets the Arts - events management

SUMMARY
RADIO COMPETITION
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TV COMPETITION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
WEB COMPETITION .
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FOR NEW RADIO FORMATS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
GOLDEN AWARD
FOR INTERNATIONAL TV COPRODUCTIONS . . . . . . . . . . .
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SPECIAL PRIZE EXPO MILANO 2015 . . . . . . . . . . .
GOLDEN AWARD
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A WEEK
348 STORIES
RADIO COMPETITION
Radio mets the Arts
(Poetry, Literature, Theatre, Mithology)
A
s in the case of Inferno (Hell) and of
Purgatorio (Purgatory), Paradiso (Paradise)
from Dante’s Divine Comedy is to be
experienced as an initiation rite. It
translates the extravagant gesture of a language
that attempts to grasp the inexpressible. Around
three of the last chants of this epic, entirely
tending toward a vertiginous and instant
ascension, the music resolutely chooses to turn
this paradise into an unprecedented human
experience. Split between sung dialogues and
recited texts, the tensions and the violence of
the emotions experienced are mixed with loving
tenderness and ecstatic happiness (Paradise –
Radio France, France). This play, an adaptation
of the documentary story of the same name by
Renowned Russian Literary Critic Victor Beilis,
is about two remarkable poets: Joseph Brodsky
and Wystan Hugh Auden. Both, without ever
knowing each other personally, recognized
the other’s great talent by just reading the
other’s verses. Their fates brought them to
America – Auden from England and Brodsky
from Russia. They then happened to meet in a
small Austrian village. After that encounter the
poets began to enthusiastically translate each
others’ verses. Thus the two geniuses’ friendship
and mutual admiration enriched the culture of
England, Russia and indeed that of the whole
world (Two Poets: Auden and Brodsky – RTR,
Russia). In Echelon, I amalgamate the texts of
three poets, where Elsa Grave takes on the
clairvoyant’s role without eclipsing the others’
efforts. The music uses words to introduce us
to a story beyond words and their meanings,
a world with associations and new meaning in
its own right. By translating tone steps in Bach’s
Sarabande for solo cello into time sections,
I have been free to make abrupt changes in
the flow of the music. To me, Tarkovsky and
Vesaas’ texts form a channel into their poetic
worlds (Echelon – Sveriges Radio, Sweden).
This musical radio play, by two composers
closely associated with Ensemble Modern, tells
the story of creativity and – what Churchill and
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Chaplin called ‘The Black Dog’ – depression. It
is the story of Australian Poet Les Murray, who
was born in 1938. An Asperger’s syndrome
sufferer, Les Murray lends his own unique
expression to his poetic works. On a second
level the story involves the return to his place
of birth and, citing Celtic forbears, it evokes an
Australia which has now almost disappeared:
a merciless and yet poetic country, where
nature displays strange traits with which man
must wrestle (Bunyah – ARD, Germany). The
show, a radio adaptation of two short stories by
Mikhail Bulgakov, The Towel with the Cockerel
Motif and The Steel Windpipe, centres on a
young, recent medical graduate, assigned to
the hospital in the village Muriino, describing
two serious medical cases – two intense human
experiences, loaded with emotion. The doctor’s
monologue, punctuated by unrest, fears,
memories, attests the beginner’s uncertainties
about his chosen profession, his sadness to be
leaving Moscow, and also the joy of seeing that
his clinical skills, instinct and intuition defeat
disease (Two short stories by Mikhail Bulgakov,
The Towel with the Cockerel Motif and The Steel
Windpipe – ROR, Romania). In 1953, Nobel
Prize Winner Ivo Andrič wrote an allegorical
story based on the traditional fables about a
little lamb and a wolf, speaking about art, the
struggles of life, growing up, trust, and the
immense force born from extreme life situations.
Like the Narrator Scheherazade, Aska prolongs
her life by dancing. When she finds herself
eye to eye with an old wolf, she launches into
her ‘dance for life’. This radio-phonic allegory
expresses Andrič’s stance about art as the victor
over the ephemerality and deterioration of life.
The original electronic music is a dramaturgical
element that creates an image of dancing
through its sound (Aska and The Wolf – HRT,
Croatia). Staged first in January 1904, just
six months before Chekov’s own death and
considered his masterpiece by many, the play
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speaks of the loss of a magnificent property
belonging to some aristocrats. The cherry
orchard, famous throughout Russia, is sold at an
auction to cover debts. The orchard is bought
by the family’s land agent who intends cutting
down the trees to parcel the property and build
cottages. Liubov’ Andreievna Ranevskaia is a
tragic figure, who returns after several years to
the home of her childhood. This orchard in fact
represents an oasis of beauty and peace for her,
recollections of a happy past. After the sale,
everything will be lost, like the fragile beauty
that the cherries in flower foretell. A text, written
at the beginning of a century, depicting the end
of an epoch (The Cherry Orchard – RV, Vatican
State). Where there are humans, there is music.
Where there is war, there is noise. Music is
part of every culture and enters all facets of our
lives, exciting emotions, colouring memories.
Going back thousands of years, records show
that music has been a vital part of warfare both
for communication and as a psychological tool,
galvanising fighters and intimidating the foe. In
this documentary our guide is the Celtic Crow
Goddess, The Morrigan, who presides over
war and death on the battlefield. She gives a
kaleidoscopic view through the millennia and
across the globe, hovering over the fallen,
exploring the soundtrack to war. When is a
musical instrument a weapon and when does
a weapon make music? From before the Fall
of Jericho to Desert Storm and beyond, sonic
war is out there (Instruments of War – ABC,
Australia). Divna’s adventure with the trolls
starts on the day when her mother gives her a
small dark eyed troll called Ghandy. Divna soon
discovers that Ghandy is not an ordinary troll
of the Tuft family, but a really wise little fellow
prone to deep thinking. However, Ghandy is by
no means a loner. He has many friends among
the trolls and other elfish and extraordinary
creatures. Ghandy will demonstrate what a
great friend he is when pepper Slavko-Dalibor,
his best friend, suddenly disappears. That is
when Divna and Ghandy wander into the
miraculous world of trolls looking for the missing
pepper. Trolls and other friends help them (and
sometimes interfere) in their search. When they
finally locate the pepper, the trolls organise a
great party celebrating love and friendship (Life
with Trolls – SBC/RTS, Serbia).
Radio Entertains, Informs,
Denounces and Inquires
In The Original Soundtrack – ‘The French
Edition’, Famous Belgian Pop Singer Bent van
Looy guides the listener through his hometown
Paris. “Paris is a city to walk in” he claims and
that’s exactly what he does. He walks from
one movie set to another talking about his
favourite scenes and soundtracks. Restaurants,
bookstores, the streets of Montmartre, the
bridges over the Seine, les banlieues, each
inspiring observations about art, history,
crime, literature and movies. From Picasso,
La Nouvelle Cuisine, The Three Musketeers,
Henry Miller to François Truffaut and Georges
Delerue. This soundscape of movie quotes,
the best of French film music and the sounds
of the city make the perfect soundtrack for a
walk through Paris. Paris by night, Paris in
the rain... the city of romance. “We’ll always
have Paris.” (The Original Soundtrack – ‘The
French Edition’ – VRT, Belgium). Sherre DeLys
and Hal Cannon took a road trip across Texas
to find relationships between the cultural and
natural landscape through music and sound.
They went to record people who live close to
the land and sing about it, working cowboys
and ranch women. The producers then turned
their microphones to the ecology surrounding
this isolated life – daily silences, bird songs,
wind and the gait of horses. Over an 1800-mile
journey they began to discover an awareness
to the senses that is lost to most of us living in
a noisy world. What emerges is a symphonic
soundscape of Texas, a harmony of the natural
world with the authentic voice from the land
(What a Cowboy Hears – ABC, Australia).
What if a modern country in Western Europe
has a shortage of electricity in the coming
winter? Radio 2 will be looking for answers
on Stroomdag (Electricity Day). The consumer
programme Inspector is setting up a call centre
anyone can go to should they have questions.
All day long tips are given for a more energy
efficient life so that together we can prevent
the lights from going out. And on Radio2.
be everyone gets all the information neatly
summarized on an interactive map. Everyone is
reassured and prepared for blackout on Radio
2’s Stroomdag (Electricity Day – VRT, Belgium).
Together with an array of scientific knowledge
and individual experiences on the effects of the
energies emitted from the Bosnian Pyramids,
The Story from the Bosnian Valley of the
Pyramids – Beyond Reality moreover examines
the origin of civilisation, the state of civilisation
today, and its impact on the future (The Story
from the Bosnian Valley of the Pyramids –
Beyond Reality – HRT, Croatia). Radio Producer
Jan Maarten Deurvorst was a student of
anthropology when he first visited Guinea
Bissau on the West African coast. He slept
under a blanket of flies, drank rusty water and
saw pigs fight over his turds. He was in one of
the poorest countries in the world and he hated
it. But much to his surprise, lots of Dutchmen
love to be in Guinea Bissau. To understand how
they are able to see paradise where he saw
hell on earth, Jan Maarten travels back to this
place (Paradise – NPO, The Netherlands). Clip
1: Drive Straight Ahead. A GPS helps a driver
navigate the realm of emotional loss. Clip 2:
Call of Dating. A woman jumps through hoops
to find romance in a new dating video game.
Clip 3: Teddy Bear Sanctuary. A recent study
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found that 35% of British adults sleep with a
Teddy Bear. Host Jonathan Goldstein speaks
with one British man who revels in the comfort
of his Teddy Bear sanctuary. Clip 4: Reply All.
A workplace email thread goes awry when
people accidentally ‘reply all’. Clip 5: Who Am
I Talking To? A man’s monologue to his unborn
child (Five Modern Tales – CBC/SRC, Canada).
The play Hilda exposes the problem of modern
day slavery, increasingly evident in the world
today and, sadly enough, in Slovenia as well.
Even though Mrs. Lemarchand believes herself
to be a leftist, objecting to any form of servitude
and refusing to use the term ‘slave’, her actions
contradict this. She exerts complete control
over her maidservant, thus annihilating Hilda
both psychologically and physically and, in
the process, destroying herself as well. In spite
of the evident socially relevant subject, in the
text the problem of supremacy springing from
the mistress’ perverted obsession with Hilda
assumes a profoundly psychological dimension
(Hilda – RTVSLO, Slovenia). His aim was
artistic provocation. His method, criticism of the
clergy and the core of religion. The work was
immediately banned after publication in 1894
and its author, Oskar Panizza sentenced to
one year in solitary confinement for blasphemy.
Oskar Panizza, weakened by the imprisonment,
emigrated to Switzerland and to Paris in 1897.
Since prison, his health steadily deteriorated
with bouts of depression, hallucination and
paranoia before dying in 1921 – 16 years
later – in a sanatorium. In 2014 – more than
120 years after it was first published –Austrian
Actor Wolfram Berger presented his own
adaption and interpretation, a brilliant ‘radio
drama’ (The Love Council – ORF, Austria). The
documentary series The Patient and the Silence
provides a shocking insight into how insecure
the apparently safe Swedish healthcare system
is. The first part, Doctors of Crime, reveals
how doctors and psychologists can commit
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serious crimes and still keep their jobs. A
surgeon drink drives on the way to work. A
paediatrician abuses children. A psychiatrist
is found guilty of rape. What happens then?
We find over 50 doctors and psychologists that
have been convicted of serious crimes, crimes
the healthcare authorities are not aware of
(Doctors of Crime – Sveriges Radio, Sweden).
14-year-old Maria Víllas goes out one night to
have fun and meets a man who calls himself
the Lone Ranger. He appears sophisticated
and takes her with him to a bar. Maria is
impressed and allows herself to be tempted
into the man’s car, only to be immediately tied
up, drugged and abducted. Her mother and
sister are rudely rebuffed by the police when
they try to report her missing. In the region of
Ciudad Juárez, on the border between Mexico
and the USA, hundreds disappear without
trace every year, and neither press nor police
are in the least interested in finding out what
has happened to them (The Death of Maria
Víllas - part 2 of 3 – Sveriges Radio, Sweden).
The programme is based on the interrogation
log of American military prison Guantanamo
Bay Detainee 063 (On the Shore Dimly Seen
– ABC, Australia). The programme focuses
on the private investigations of Dr. László
Németh, who more than ten years ago started
to investigate, together with a team of experts,
why his air hostess wife, Ágnes Tallér and the
59 passengers on the flight had to die and who
was responsible. The programme presents the
most probable reasons for the crash with the
help of Hungarian and foreign experts, eye
witnesses, relatives, as well as minutes, secret
documents and archive recordings (The Flight of
Secrets – Part 3 – MTVA, Hungary). It’s spring,
and the new civil engineer graduates are
holding a big party in Kallio, Helsinki. Simon
Lindell is one of the celebrating graduates. He
leaves the party at around 9 p.m., but he never
comes home. What happened to Simon that
night after the party remains a mystery (23-yearold Simon who disappeared – YLE, Finland).
Radio Experiments with Music
and Interacts with its Audience
RadioBattle is the first European Radio
Championship. Eight radios, public and private,
from as many countries, competed in a music
battle, track by track. The main control centre
was in the Rai Radio2 studios in Milan, from
where Referee Filippo Solibello, the creator of
RadioBattle, broadcast. Each show had three
studios airing from three different countries. The
participants at the first season were Germany,
Estonia, Serbia, Italy, Iceland, Slovenia, Sweden
and Latvia. Latvia was crowned 2015 European
Radio Champion. The voting process was
by popular vote (via Twitter). Tweet Record:
The final registered 100,000 Tweets in just 1
hour! (RadioBattle – RAI, Italy). Thursday Live
is an interactive concert series featuring the
Norwegian Radio Orchestra, broadcast live
on NRK Radio and on the Internet. Via social
media, the live audience, radio audience
and Internet audience share their concert
impressions and provide comments during
the concert. Two hosts are on stage to present
the music, interview performers and members
of the audience as well as to invite people to
send in pictures. A reporter moreover passes
on questions and comments arriving from
the social media. The goal is to activate the
audience and share the concert experience
with the country’s entire population (Thursday
Live – NRK, Norway). Selected by the Guardian
newspaper as one of the top live events of the
year, Benedict Mason’s Meld was one of the
most eagerly-awaited and spectacular moments
of the 2014 Proms season. Commissioned
by the BBC, several years in the writing and
planning, and given its premiere performance
by Chantage, Mason’s site-specific work drew
on the many opportunities afforded by the huge
circular space that is the Royal Albert Hall,
confounding the distinction between the concert
venue and the piece, to the delight and surprise
of the audience (Meld – BBC, United Kingdom).
The Unbeatables – Finland’s Best Freestyle Rap
On Air is a music show based on cooperation
between two Finnish rap artists and their radio
audience. During the live shows, the audience
communicates with the rap artists and gives
them rap topics on the live show via Twitter, the
channel’s own Shoutbox and also by phone.
The improvisational skills and linguistic wit of the
rappers create surprising stories in breath-taking
speed. The show is a triumph of the Finnish
language, spiced with pop and rap music (The
Unbeatables – Finland’s Best Freestyle Rap On
Air – YLE, Finland). The Radio Kraków produced
premiere of the radio drama, broadcast live on
20th February 2014, from Studio R. Bobrowska,
with interaction with the public. Hate is a
monologue sung by Marek Koterski and with
an actor playing various parts. The word Hate,
repeatedly said by listeners in a bid to put
an end to frustrations, provides the leit motiv
for the programme. The various characters
are played by Krzysztof Globisz, a member
of the Kraców National Theatre (Stay Teatr)
(Hate – PR, Poland). Is it necessary to learn the
notes in order to understand classical music?
Are we certain that musical comprehension
should start from the basics? In the live radio
programme Music explained to my Children
Nicola Campogrande suggests a different
approach from the usual ones, proposing an
ironic composition course open to everyone,
grown-ups and children, experts and neophytes.
In 14 episodes, around 100 music pieces are
disassembled, to discover their inner logic by
thinking as a composer, bringing up subjects
like ‘Accompaniment and Counterpoint’,
‘Writing for Orchestra’, ‘The Role of Soloists’,
‘Forte-piano-crescendo-diminuendo’ (The Music
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explained to my Children – RAI, Italy). Making
a work of art is a monologue. The artwork is
dug from the soil of the subconscious and not
even the artist himself is familiar with every
one of his thoughts. Soliloque introduces a
singer and five solo instruments producing
recognizable tones. But what are the tones that
surround, punctuate, and overlap the solos of
familiar instruments? Are they the sound of the
artist’s subconscious? A monologue? (Soliloque
– YLE, Finland). Rikke Houd follows Stig as he
gets fitted for a new set of teeth. The recordings
of his repeated visits to the dentist are spliced
together with an interview in his cluttered
home, where he spends his days getting drunk
and crying over films, often Titanic. Its two
locations, the sitting room and the dentist’s
chair, are masterfully woven together, allowing
the raw and often uncomfortable energy of
the recordings to hit the listener on a visceral
level (Stig’s Teeth – Radio24syv, Denmark).
Programme for the Birthday of Art 2014 and the
90th Anniversary of Radio Belgrade. The Voices
in Space represents the sound fantasy about
the planet Earth observed from the cosmos
and about human voices coming from it. These
voices of joy, happiness, try to communicate in
various planetary languages and even attempt
interplanetary contact and, what’s more,
maybe the voices of sadness and terribleness
– all rising up directly from the Earth, via fast
expanding spheres of air molecules as well
as via radio waves (The Voices in Space –
SBC/RTS, Serbia). The innovative form of live
performance of Bonsai combinations and live
playing on unique musical instruments (Steam
- The Symphony of Energies – RTVS, Slovakia).
Is music a sound only, or also a language
delivering definite messages? This programme
attracts a wide range of listeners and draws
their attention to classical and modern music
revealing its completely unknown side: music
can contain hidden information. Author
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Oleg Troyanovsky, a professional composer,
describes various cases of encryption in music
starting from the 16th century – from Bach till
nowadays – in an atmosphere of a documental
detective story featuring renowned modern
Russian, German and American composers
and musicologists (Encrypted in Music – RTR,
Russia). 2055. The near future. Planet earth
had lost its key life source – water. Water has
been replaced by a gelatine made of turnip,
especially cultivated for this purpose by a
multinational company Pescho. Marek Epstein
is among the most outstanding and busiest
contemporary young Czech scriptwriters,
working also for television and cinema. He has
won several prestigious awards, including the
2014 Prix Europa Best TV Fiction prize (Pescho
– CZCR, Czech Republic). A radio play about
the relationship between the owner of a country
house (‘dacha’) called User by the playwright
and Thermometer – a completely inanimate
being, a machine installed to maintain the
required level of heat in the house. A story of
loneliness, self-doubt, love, humaneness and a
great deal more happening to us in this modern
frenetic world (Mechanical Contact – RTR,
Russia). Spam Symphony transforms ‘Intimacy’,
Author Nora Ružièkova’s exquisitely lucid text,
into an existentially distressing piece of work.
The central theme deals with brainwashing by
women’s magazines and their ‘advice’ columns
as well as by those tabloids, peppered with
observations from psychology experts (Spam
Symphony – RTVS, Slovakia).
Radio Keeps Traditions Alive
Two elderly brothers, from the county of Cavan,
journey to Knockfierna Hill in West Limerick,
in order to make good on a promise to their
late mother. They recite the family lore over the
course of this road trip, summoning memories
of their parents’ performances on the Empire
Builder train route, but also their mother’s past
as a white witch (Toronto and the State of Grace
– RTÉ, Ireland). Every tradition is rooted in the
past and derives, for each one of us, from our
common background... which is what Musician
Mehdi Aminian has been thinking about for
many years. A number of foreign musicians,
themselves passionate about traditional ney
or duduk music, created a new experience, a
national tournament devoted to a Roots Revival
(Mingling with Soul – Romanian Roots Revival
– ROR, Romania). Nele is a wacky but very
curious young lady with a great love for the
radio. On the occasion of its 100th anniversary,
she undertakes, like Alice in Wonderland, a
trip into Radio Land and has the most amazing
adventures. She discovers the first Belgian radio
broadcasts and finds radio gems of yesteryear.
On her journey she also meets the heroes and
heroines of radio. Her adventure ends in the
future. Nele in Radio Land is a creative series
on the history of radio in Belgium. The fairy tale
setting creates tension, humour and adventure.
In a very colourful way it gives the listener
an insight into the emergence of radio in our
country (Nele in Radio Land – VRT, Belgium).
Radio Stands by the Needy
and Suffering
Heroin has made quite a comeback in the USA.
Many states are struggling with alarming spikes
in the number of overdose deaths. The drug
popularity is tied to the abuse of strong
painkillers, opiates, like OxyContin. Throughout
the country, the official response varies: a
‘laissez-faire’ approach, tougher law
enforcement, compassion. Vermont is both one
of the hardest-hit places in the country and a
model for those seeking solutions. There, local
authorities are sparing no efforts in their nontraditional way to fight this epidemic. Yanik
Dumont Baron went to Vermont to check it out
(The Ravages of Heroin Addiction in Vermont
– CBC/SRC, Canada). Meuse county in northeastern France holds the national record for
heroin consumption! With Maastricht in the
Netherlands just a three hour drive, heroin is
ravaging the countryside. Law enforcement, the
judiciary and medics explain the ins-and-outs of
drug-taking in a rural district totally unprepared
for this wave of junkies (Junkies in the Country
– Radio France, France). The Confessional – a
web page where people anonymously share
their experience with suicide. They search for
someone who would painlessly die with them.
Two of them openly speak on the microphone.
Both of them see ending their lives as an
extreme alternative to solving their problems.
They defend their motives for their actions,
explaining they are not forcing anything on
anyone. They sound strangely pragmatic, in fact
reasonable (Hi, I Want to Die – CZCR, Czech
Republic). The lonely pensioner wandering
ghost-like through our cities looking for
returnable bottles is an image of the past: the
aging and dying are being outsourced from
Germany. Poldi and Gretchen have reached
retirement age. Time to count their savings. Can
only people with a sum in their bank accounts,
or can prove they have a regular monthly
pension, spend their final years in Germany?
The rest will have to pack their bags and say
good-bye to the fatherland and seek a secure
retirement abroad. Poldi has booked
somewhere for him and his bees in a certified
retirement home in Poland. For a smaller fee,
Gretchen has bought her ticket in a seniors’
residence in south-west China (Retirement
Overseas - Sha Ji Jing Hou (Slaughter a Chicken
to Cow the Monkeys) – ARD, Germany). As
Penelope Simpson approaches her 80th
birthday, she decides to embrace her inevitable
death. An enthusiastic artist, she orders a plain
coffin and paints its lid with snowdrops,
clematis, poppies and daisies from her garden.
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Then she invites her friends and family to add
whatever they want on the coffin: one does a
red boat; another, angels. But when her granddaughter Olivia comes to stay, a profound
connection between them is revealed. As Olivia
and Poppy discuss life and its ending, they face
their own mortality and we, the listeners, face
ours (Pushing Up The Daisies – BBC, United
Kingdom). Songül and her siblings, Dogan,
Leyla, Pinar, and Halil, tragically lost their
biological mother when between 4 and 10
years old respectively. Born into a family of
Turkish immigrants, they were first placed in a
home and later in a SOS children’s hostel. ‘An
angel who came to save us’ … that is how they
saw their new mother, Angela Sasshofer. This
40 year old woman from Lower Austria, who
had travelled extensively professionally,
discovered a yearning to do something with
real meaning (Two Mothers – ORF, Austria). This
documentary radio drama looks at the flood
that struck Slavonia on May 17th. Just after the
water receded, Josip Kruniæ from Podgajci, an
experienced elementary school teacher in
Gunja and mentor, leader of the multimedia
group Studio of Creative Ideas Gunja, followed
the Rajevo village pastor on a tour of the
flooded areas and recorded everything he saw
(The Flood – HRT, Croatia). Each year, a happy
event turns into an unhappy one for more than
250 parents in Denmark. Dreams of life as a
mum and dad are suddenly shattered – when
the new baby – for one reason or another –
dies just before birth. This is the story of Anton,
who never had a life outside his mother’s
womb. A story about dreams and everything
that could have been - told by Anton’s father,
Jesper Dein (Anton is flying – DR, Denmark).
‘Now, you stay where you are!’. With these
words, Anders leaves his 12-year-old son Lasse
in a snowdrift, while he continues up a
mountain with Lasse’s elder brother Rasmus. The
sun is high in a clear blue sky. Short of breath
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they reach the top, but as Anders looks over his
shoulder his smile freezes, as dark clouds come
rolling over the mountain. A blizzard is rising.
Anders and Rasmus hurry downwards, but they
are too late. Lasse is gone. Anders searches
desperately, only to find the vast, white void
(Snowblind – DR, Denmark). Anna and Inga
grew up together. They had a happy and safe
childhood and a mother who took care of them.
They grow up and Teenage Anna commits
suicide. A mother loses her daughter, a
daughter loses her sister. They both feel anger
and guilt. Why did Anna take her own life?
Could they have done something to stop her?
Both Inga and her mother are floundering after
their tragedy. Boats on the Water is about living
on after loss, and how important we are for
each other (Boats on the Water – NRK,
Norway). Naoko and Shogo lost their 20-yearold son in a tragic accident. Unable to accept
the sudden death of their beloved son, their
once happy marriage slowly starts to crumble.
Their relationship had been built around their
son and now they are left with the realisation
they knew so little about each other. They
disagree, clash and grow further apart. Can
they come to accept their son’s death and love
each other once again as husband and wife?
(Blue Skies and A Shooting Star – NHK, Japan).
Tore Nagel is Norway’s oldest base jumper. 63
years old, he wants to jump from one of the
world’s most dangerous cliffs, Trollveggen,
‘Troll’s Wall’. The cliff face is 1,500 meters
high. Tore Nagel has cancer, and he jumps to
celebrate life and feel he is alive. While he is
climbing up the mountainside to get to the top
from where he’ll jump, Espen Thoresen tries to
follow and ask him about the most difficult
themes in his life, about love, betrayal and
loneliness. But will Tore Nagel dare to jump,
when he has been confronted with so much of
what gives him bad karma, just before he
jumps? (Wuthering Heights – NRK, Norway).
An impassioned one-man opera about an
optimist’s optimism. The Hour of the Rabbit
begins with an accident, one as hilarious as is
fatal. The victim is Rico, a Dutch-Italian, diehard
romantic with a heart too big for his own good.
In our presentation, we see the movie of Rico’s
life, as it flashes before his eyes just moments
before his death. His joys, his sorrows, his good
and not-so-good days zoom by in this tale
packed full of memories and images. The
tumultuous life of an incorrigible optimist who
seems to have been fated at birth to a life of
trial and tribulation (The Hour of the Rabbit
– NPO, The Netherlands). In this modern classic,
a 12-year-old girl seems to be possessed by a
demon. Doctors are baffled so her mother turns
to troubled priest and psychiatrist Damien
Karras, who identifies a profound malevolence
in Regan’s distorted body and foul-mouthed
speech. An experienced exorcist, Father Merrin,
is called in. But the real exorcist is Karras; in an
act of great courage and compassion, he
challenges the demon to leave the girl and
come into him. Broadcast late at night in two
episodes, The Exorcist is scary, of course, but
also a meditation on faith, vocation and what
makes us human (The Exorcist – BBC, United
Kingdom). “I went into the slaughter house for
the first time in December 2009. Three years
later I came back with the intention of
completing a photographic project there.
Another year later, I had questions to ask of
Olivier, Christelle, Sébastien and Hervé...
Meaning that significant meetings can take
time... The spark inspiring me had come from
Sébastien, four years earlier, and his somewhat
wary, embarrassed look – not embarrassed or
ashamed of his work, but worried about what I
might think of it. That look was the beginning.
With their bloody hands, their long sharpened
knives at their waists, their radiant and caring
smiles, they have seduced me and convinced
me that there was something profound,
paradoxical, about human nature to be found
there...”, Tony Hayère. (Killing – Radio France,
France).
Radio Talks about Everyday Life,
in a Growing Multi-Ethnic Society
A day in the life of Jamila, Adyan, Sinem &
Sinem: school, hanging out, eating döner at
the Orient eck on Kottbusser Tor. They are aged
14 and 15 and attend Year 10 at a secondary
school in the Berlin district of Kreuzberg. Their
parents are from Palestine, Egypt, Turkey and
Iraq. Apart from Adyan, all the girls were born
in Berlin. Adyan is from Baghdad and has
been living in Germany for 6 years. They are
growing up in the heart of Kreuzberg: this is
their home. Home, for the girls, is where their
friends are, where they go to school, where they
know their way around and where they can
speak German. In their parents’ countries they
feel like tourists. They count as ‘the Germans’.
But in Germany they do not see themselves as
Germans (Kids, Kreuzberg (Berlin): 4 Girls,
24 Hours – ARD, Germany). Six protagonists
– black, white, Jewish, Muslim – looking for
love outside their community. Antoinette meets
Félix on a black online dating site. Brahim, a
free-thinker and lover of life, meets Gülnaz on a
Muslim site. Gülnaz, a young Kurdish woman,
has had a love affair with Félix that she kept
secret from her family. She works for Elsa, a
Jewish pharmacist whose mother is pressuring
her to marry. Elsa meets Mathieu, someone
fascinated by her culture. A Frenchman going
back eight generations, Mathieu is proud to
be identified as a Communist. Six characters
interact in dream or reality, each seeking love,
yet torn between their identity and community,
each finding their own way of dealing with
this complex relationship (Traitors – Arte
Radio, France). On December 13th 2012,
11
half-a-million Swedes turned on their TVs to
watch the celebration of Saint Lucia’s Day, a
local Christmas ceremony regarded as a ray
of light in the dark Swedish winter. This year,
the honour of playing Saint Lucia fell on Astrid
Cederlöf, a 14-year-old girl adopted from
India. Reaction to the Saint being played by
a dark-skinned girl was instant – social media
was soon boiling over with racist remarks
about a Swedish tradition forever destroyed.
The programme follows how Astrid Cederlöf’s
life was upended by thousands of hateful
comments. It also portrays two of the people
who anonymously offended the young schoolgirl
in a country increasingly plagued by racism
(The Black Saint – Sveriges Radio, Sweden).
An investigation into the ages of the everyday
life of 25 ordinary people from 0 to 100 years
old. Our lives are very different from each
others’, but the stages are similar for many:
birth, first memories, the beginning of school,
the first kiss, exams, the first major decisions,
first big changes, difficulties in finding a job, the
ripeness of love, the first day of retirement, the
very last days of life. A Life remixes the genres
of drama, documentary and storytelling into a
live show in which the host is concurrently the
storyteller, the script author and the actor. A six
month journey through Italy to find stories of
common people. A series about what we have
been, are now and indeed might be. Different
ages, different people but only …A Life (A Life
– RAI, Italy). There are many reasons for hating
the Christmas holidays. One is having to meet
all those friends and relatives who left Italy a
few years ago to make their future abroad.
People who return for about ten days only and
then depart again for far away places, those
full of possibilities and opportunities, difficult to
imagine in this country. The main character has
always tried to avoid meeting these returning
visitors. But this time he resolves to face them…
because perhaps remaining has been the
12
wrong decision and the moment has come to
choose where to go (The Returned – RAI, Italy).
For a long time, a hundred-year-old theatre
programme had been hidden and forgotten in a
wardrobe in the attic of a country house. Found
by an amateur actor, it helped connect the past
and the present. The simple, unsophisticated
and archaic play entitled Not to America was
first staged at the beginning of World War I,
while a hundred years later it is performed
in a village theatre by the descendants
and successors of the original actors. The
documentary combines theatrical fiction with
the sweet-and-sour stories of early 20th century
emigrants and with modern day adventures
of those seeking their fortune in the ‘New
World’. A century ago, the people leaving were
manual workers, while now it is the white collar
workers’ turn to go. What, however, they have
in common is their fascination with America
(Not to America – RTVSLO, Slovenia). With this
reportage Michela Daghini takes you on a visit
to the Monastery of the Discalced Carmelites of
Legnano, to the north of Milan. The 16 sisters
living life inside the walls agreed to open their
door to share a few moments of their day and
relate what choosing to live within the enclosure
entails. The Sisters of Carmel nuns, whose order
was founded in 1593 by St. Teresa d’Avila,
are mainly devoted to contemplative prayer,
but during this meeting we also discover the
liveliness of their daily routine, chock full of
activities and varied emotions (A Cloistered
Life – SRG SSR, Switzerland). What promises
do we make to the person we love? What do
we say, dazzled by love? What dreams do
we fashion together, and how do we formulate
our shared project? Where do the promises go
when the relationship fails, when love ends,
when the light dissipates? Do the promises
survive somewhere, in our body, in a little
pocket near our heart? Or, like the love, are
they crushed forever? (True love will find you
in the end – Radio France, France). What do
we need in life? A TV set, a car, a phone?
Can we live differently? Léa Promaja invites us
to discover Fabrizio and his son Siddharta’s
way of life amidst the hills of Cupramontana,
in the Italian Marche. A sound immersion in
the daily life of a man who chose to live as
independently as possible, without all things he
sees as unnecessary. Thirty years have gone by
and Fabrizio carries on living self-sufficiently.
He welcomes all those who want to learn
about his choices, his everyday life (A Little
Plus – SRG SSR, Switzerland). Koichi Shimano
(32) has separated from his wife and been
working as a private detective in this fishing
port for the past few months. His job entails
investigating a homeless man, Takeshi Yamato
(65), and reporting back to his client. What
does the word home in homeless mean? Is it
your house, your family? Or is it the time in your
life you value most. Our story tells of a homeless
pensioner and a man who pursues him looking
for answers. Through their different ways of
living, we find out what it means to identify The
Time of Your Life (The Time of Our Life – NHK,
Japan). This piece from the Voivodeship is
about the tragic story of two loves: of two men
for the same woman. The setting is a hotel on
the Istrian peninsula, near the Italian border.
The two heroes never meet, their story runs
parallel at the same spot, but with a two year
time difference. Both are attracted to the same
mysterious woman, Lujza, locally well-known,
although her business there is far from clear.
All the ingredients are in place for an exciting
adapted crime story (The Stuffed Bird - In Two
Parts – MTVA, Hungary).
Radio Tells the Stories of Larger than Life
Characters
When our radio-station decided to honour
a very serious, senior Austrian poetess by
broadcasting her short poems in every
broadcast on her 90th birthday, we – the authors
and presenters of this eclectic music-show –
were asked to include two of those poems in
our programme. Not an easy task, since our
programme neither deals with literature, nor is
very serious (on the contrary). 3 days before
going on air, we read an interview with the
poetess. Were you ever a cheerful person?
“I am a melancholy person and can only
work when I’m feeling melancholic.” What
makes you laugh? “I’m also a big child. My
favourite pet is Snoopy. Snoopy’s adventures
make me very happy. The way he sits there
and types away.” Finally we knew what to
do. So, here is our birthday present for highly
serious poetess Friederike Mayröcker (‘It Was
a Dark and Stormy Night’ – ORF, Austria). The
biographical political radio feature sketches the
life of Pavel Tigrid, one of the most significant
Czech journalists of the 20th century: twice an
émigré, fleeing from Nazism and Communism,
head of the Czechoslovak section of Radio
Free Europe and publisher of the magazine
Svìdectví (Testimony). Most of the material
was recorded in the 1990s when Tigrid still
followed the Czech political scene, an adviser
to Czech President Václav Havel and then
Minister of Culture (Pavel Tigrid: I Command
Myself – CZCR, Czech Republic). Legendary
Boxing Trainer Angelo Dundee said that the two
best chins in boxing belonged to Muhammad
Ali and an Irishman, Sean Mannion. Sugar Ray
Leonard said Boston-based Mannion had the
heart of a lion, while Marvelous Marvin Hagler
could not knock him down through two years of
sparring. But to the emigrant community, Sean
Mannion was the Gaelic speaking labourer with
boxing skills so brilliant he became the No. 1
ranked junior middleweight in the world in the
1980s. The programme tells the story of a quiet
humble hero who blazed a trail to a World
Title shot in Madison Square Gardens in 1984
13
(Documentary on One - Never Knocked Down
– RTÉ, Ireland). More than 200 years ago,
Ludwig van Beethoven composed his famous
Ninth Symphony. Incredibly, that masterpiece
– Ode to Joy - was written when the composer
was already profoundly deaf. And yet all these
years later, little is known or understood about
deaf musicians. In Deaf Jam Willow Yamauchi
– herself deaf in one ear – delves into the
fascinating world of musicians and composers
who shatter misconceptions about the way
those with impaired hearing experience sound.
And in a first for CBC Radio, American Sign
Language-English Interpreter Kathy Munro signs
the whole documentary in an accompanying
online video, that is also closed captioned for
the hearing-impaired (Deaf Jam – CBC/SRC,
Canada). The fate that befell Czech Composer,
Vítìzslava Kaprálová was marked by tragedy.
A genuinely talented young woman, student
and also friend of Bohuslav Martinù, she
irrefutably had the potential to achieve a great
international career. And yet, aged merely 25,
she died miles from her parents, her homeland,
in the bedlam of the beginning of the WWII. In
that short, scantily measured time, she however
wrote over 40 music pieces to much critical
acclaim from her contemporaries (Vítìzslava
– CZCR, Czech Republic). Once a month, we
produce a family portrait of a personality
from the world of art, history, science etc.
This is a story about a prominent Serbian, a
global artist, Milena Pavlovic Barili, who was
born in Pozarevac, November 5th 1909. Her
mother was Serbian, her father Italian. This
is all about Milena, her family, her dreams,
desires and sorrows (Across the Doorstep –
Milena Pavlovic Barili – SBC/RTS, Serbia).
Regularly referred to as Poland’s James Bond,
Jan Karski, who described his work similar to
that of a ‘gramophone record’, stands out as
an extraordinary personality with a fascinating
life story. An army officer, an emissary for the
14
Polish Underground, Karski reported to the
Allies about the horror of German-occupied
Poland and the Holocaust, a truth however not
to the liking of world rulers. To mark the 10th
anniversary of his death, US President Barack
Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of
Freedom. The Sejm of the Republic of Poland
proclaimed 2014 the Year of Jan Karski to mark
the centennial of his birth (That Karski – PR,
Poland). World War I led to sweeping overall
change. Art included. In 1916, in Zurich, the
Dada Movement was born, and in 1917, in the
USA – which entered the war that very same
year – Marcel Duchamp made his artwork,
‘Fountain’. That urinal, exhibited upside down,
signed by R. Mutt, was set to change the course
of art in 20th and 21st centuries. The programme
is a documentary – radio essay about the War,
Art, revolutions, Serbia, Europe... about the
World in the 20th century (On Fountain and
Turtles – SBC/RTS, Serbia). Imagine a factual
story on the radio which sounds almost like
a song. Urbs aka Paul Nawrata did exactly
that. The musician and producer from Vienna
has documented the story of Trevor Horn,
‘the man who invented the 80ies’. To achieve
this goal, Urbs retells the origins of Horn’s
groundbreaking masterpiece: Relax by Frankie
Goes to Hollywood. The feature is not supposed
to just sound like a song, the goal was to
resemble the musical structure of the actual song
it is talking about: Relax. The story ends with
a major retrospective of Trevor Horn’s music,
carefully crafted and mixed by Urbs (FM4
DaviDecks presents: The History of ‘Relax’ by
Frankie Goes To Hollywood. A Feature by DJ
Urbs – ORF, Austria).
Radio, Keeping Memories of Wars, Battlefields
and Military Stories Alive
A German and a French writer travel together
to the battlefields of the 1914-1918 Western
Front. Their assignment: to dig up memories,
their own, those of others, and those shared by
both, from Flanders along the Somme to Verdun.
By the trenches, bunker lines and memorial sites
they meet descendants of former soldiers, along
with historians, tourist guides, souvenir vendors,
monument caretakers. Together, the writers also
engage in lively discussions, evoking their own
personal memories in a frank and direct fashion
(14/18 – Let’s Dig! Franco-German Perspectives
on the Western Front of the Great War – ARD,
Germany). Radio 2, Het Geluidshuis and Gone
West on Café Cuba made a radio serial in
46 episodes set during the First World War.
Café Cuba had a first rate cast and is a story
about friendship, art and love set against the
backdrop of the horrors of the First World War.
A central role is played by Koenraad Verstockt,
a young artist who is sent to the front. Radio
2 found the commemoration of the Great War
an ideal opportunity to once again create a
radio story, to stimulate the imagination using
only voices and sound. The twenty-minute pilot
episode of Café Cuba was broadcast on August
4th 2014, the day on which the Germans
invaded Belgium exactly 100 years ago. The
whole series was broadcast daily on Radio 2 in
episodes of four minutes, starting on September
8th. The last episode was aired on November
11th, Armistice Day (Café Cuba – VRT, Belgium).
Joe Bonham is a young American who, together
with millions of his countrymen, is drafted
into service during the First World War. After
being hit by an artillery shell in the fighting,
he loses his limbs but survives: Joe thinks, and
his thoughts are our story. Hours, days, years
marked by his heartbeat, by the throbbing
of his brain, the sound of his breathing, the
reverberation of the doctors’ and nurses’ steps.
After years of psychological and physical
isolation, Joe succeeds in communicating with
the outside world and receives a reply. Joe is
once again caught up in a battle and from the
trench he shouts out his SOS, indicating that
he is alive (Johnny Got His Gun – SRG SSR,
Switzerland). Two days before the Second
World War reaches Norway, April 7th 1940,
waiter Ivar Gundersen reports for work on
board the America Liner ‘Bergensfjord’. His
wife remains in Bergen with their 17 day old
twins and a boy of two and a half years. The
three young children are never going to see
their father again. What happened to the father
who abandoned them? And the children who
were abandoned? 74 years after Ivar left, Rolf
Gundersen, the only remaining one of Ivar’s
Norwegian sons, finally receives a visitor from
America, someone who knew his father very
well (The American Father – NRK, Norway).
During World War II, Slovakia was allied
to Hitler’s Germany. On 29th August 1944
the Slovak National Uprising was launched.
Fighting against Fascism and for democracy,
within two months the insurgents were making a
valiant defence deep in their own territory. After
the communist coup in 1948 many resistance
fighters were imprisoned for their democratic
ideals; some even executed. The author’s own
grandfather, Gustav Neštiak was also a victim
of the reprisals (The Betrayed Insurgents – The
Army – RTVS, Slovakia). The Last Days in
Helmand is a unique commentary portrait of a
small piece of Denmark, located far away from
that small northern country. In Camp Bastion,
in the middle of the south Afghan desert,
10,000 Danes have over the latest 8 years
battled, alongside their allies, the Taleban. The
commentary focuses on the Danish troops’ last
days in windblown Helmand; a time where
everything is being put in crates, also inevitably
a time to look back and ponder whether the
entire effort had been worthwhile … especially
when the cenotaph is being loaded on a plane
bound for Denmark (The Last Days in Helmand
– DR, Denmark). Lucy’s soldier father is always
leaving on dangerous missions. This time, she
15
finds an army manual with instructions on the
proper way to disengage from loved ones.
Lucy reads it before he goes and learns that
sometimes teenagers suffer from Post-Traumatic
Stress, causing nightmares and bedwetting
– like her. This is a bittersweet modern tale
about going to war from the perspective of the
children of soldiers. The writer’s own father
was in the army and this play explores how a
girl accepts mortality (How to Say Goodbye
Properly – BBC, United Kingdom).
Radio, Remembering The Shoah
A young German, an admirer of Polish
literature, arrives in Poland for the European
Football Champions games. In truth, he is really
heading for Drohobych, in the Ukraine, where
Bruno Schulz died. Why though does he want
to visit these places? The boy turns out to be the
grandson of the SS officer who shot the artist.
Reflections about guilt and punishment, the
sacred and the profane form an integral part
of this sound poem (On the Road to Damascus
– PR, Poland). Samuel Willenberg is the last
living prisoner to survive the Nazi death camp
in Treblinka, where around one million Jews
were exterminated during World War II. Samuel
is 90 years old. The war experiences have
determined his entire life. Memories from the
camp, where death was omnipresent, haunt him
every day. After the war he emigrated to Israel.
Once retired, he took up sculpting. He has
created some shocking works, depicting people
he remembers from the camp (The Last Witness
– PR, Poland). This is a hate story, lasting over
50 years, burning with the memory of hornets
who never forget the wrongs done to them by
their enemies. A story told by three ‘body-less’
voices. The protagonists are Jews, ex-escapees
from Vichy France to Switzerland. Now in
their 90s, they communicate only through their
grand-daughter. We learn their story of flight
16
over the Alps, internment in Swiss work-camps,
and then a post-war landscape in which the
grandfather works as an interpreter for the
Nazi Hermann Göring at the Nuremberg Trials
(Hornet Memory – SRG SSR, Switzerland).
Radio Tells of Dictatorships and Revolutions
This programme takes us to Thingyan, Burma’s
New Year Water Festival. New Year is always
a time for renewal, but this year Burma’s people
want real change. In October the country will
host its first democratic general election in 25
years. Thingyan means ‘Change’, and the
water festival metaphorically washes away
errors of the past, cleansing the way for the
new year. This year 22 year old student Aint
Thiri Thu wants to fill the streets with the sound
of Thangyat, satirical verse poking fun at the
government – once an inseparable part of the
festival but banned for decades by the military
junta. But how will she revive an art form she
has never heard? (New Year New Burma –
ABC, Australia). Born in 1917, Ella Ruzicka,
lives in Prague. After the Second World War, a
young Danish woman marries a wealthy Czech
and goes to live with him in Prague. But a year
later the Communists seize power. He is sent
to Slovakia. She stays behind, alone with three
children. The two of them were never reunited.
That is the story I came to make. But when I go
to visit Ella one last time, one more interview
to get the details of her lost love, she suddenly
changes her story completely. It furthermore
turns into a bitter tale of betrayal and fear. The
remarkable fate of one person, but also the
story of millions of people in Eastern Europe:
the repression, the lying, spying … and the
fear and reluctance to tell the full, true story
(Ella from Prague – Radio24syv, Denmark).
Grisha, based on Katja Kettu’s short story,
plays in a blatantly modern way with the fates
of two young Finnish women and Rasputin in
early twentieth century Russia. Marissa and
Anna have left Finland for St. Petersburg,
for the big world, to work and party. While
there, the women meet a charismatic prophet,
Grigori Rasputin. Freedom and adventure are
nowhere to be seen in pre-revolutionary St.
Petersburg....only manipulation, subjection
and possessiveness, mingled with love and
infatuation in a nightmarish labyrinth (Grisha –
YLE, Finland). It has been one year now since
a Moscow-backed referendum led the Crimean
peninsula, virtually a Ukrainian Island, to merge
with the Russian Federation; an annexation
deemed illegal by the international community.
‘New rules’ were enforced by the Russian
authorities with surpising efficiency and speed,
regulations affecting every aspect of daily life in
Crimea - changing clocks to Moscow Standard
Time was only just the start. Meantime, only a
few Crimeans dare make a stand by refusing
Russian citizenship... at their own peril (Crimea
under Russian Rule – Radio France, France). On
April 1st 1941, Easter Day, a peaceful but huge
crowd of unarmed people from several villages,
carrying a white flag and religious symbols,
walked together as one towards the new SovietRomanian border. Rumours were circulating
the Soviets would now permit crossing into
Romania. At the border, they were cautioned
to stop by Soviet troops; a warning apparently
ignored, prompting the border guards to
open fire... This programme looks back at this
moment, better known as the Romania’s Kathyn
TV COMPETITION
who finally bring the war to an end. It is
however an uneasy peace that collapses when
the Russian troops arrive. Both superpowers
claim Tannbach for themselves in this miniature
version of the dawn of the Cold War (Line
of Separation – ZDF, Germany). Marking the
end of the British campaign in Helmand, a
feature length documentary tells the story of the
Afghan war through the words and pictures
of the soldiers who fought it and took their
video cameras into battle, recording the war
as only they could see it (Our War: Goodbye
Afghanistan – BBC, United Kingdom). Târgu
Mureş, Romania is where a gory conflict
broke out between Romanians and Hungarians
shortly after the 1989 fall of communism.
25 years have passed and a lot of people
still think the two ethnic groups form parallel
communities in the city, striving to get on
without each other and rarely, if ever, getting
in touch. A documentary focuses on those
Today and Yesterday’s Conflicts
T
he story of the conspiracy to kill Spanish
Prime Minister General Juan Prim.
Following the 1868 Revolution of Cadiz,
the supporters of the different candidates
to the Spanish throne began clashing with
one another and also to confront favouring
a Republic, all within the context of an
increasingly tense political climate. The search
for a King throughout Europe unleashed the
Franco-Prussian War. General Prim became
a common enemy by pledging his support for
the candidacy of Amadeo, Duke of Aosta of
the House of Savoy (Prim, Murder in Calle
del Turco – RTVE, Spain). Spring 1945. In
Tannbach, a fanatical band of Nazi soldiers
stages one last murderous attack on their fellow
citizens before the arrival of the Americans,
17
living in mixed marriages (Transylvanian (Love)
Stories – TVR, Romania). Artistic expression
can help overcome the experience of human
participation in a war. The testimony, in the
first person, is from members of the AFDA
(Association of the Disabled from Armed
Forces) that staged the show, also performed by
Balleteatro dance students. In the year marking
the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the
First World War, Casa da Música in Porto, in
cooperation with disabled servicemen from the
former colonial Portuguese Army presented a
musical on war (Curado – Art and War – RTP,
Portugal). A dramatisation of one of the most
exciting stories from the Second World War
– the Nazis’ efforts to develop an atom bomb
and the Allies’ desperate struggle to prevent
it from happening. One of the dramatic high
points of the series is the daring sabotage
mission to blow up the heavy water factory in
the Norwegian Mountains in 1943 (The Heavy
Water War – NRK, Norway). A WW2 story
of Jewish artists who struggle with wartime
reality by the only means available to them:
music, theatre and film. They defend themselves
from Nazi repression with humour, cabaret,
shows, skits, performances, songs as well as
concerts organized in the concentration camps
and ghettos all around Europe. They fight for
their lives, but most importantly, they fight for
their souls and their dignity (The Cabaret of
Death – TVP, Poland). August 1918, Canadian
troops took part in a spectacular incursion into
German territory. The fighting took place in
the tiny village of Hallu. Almost a century later
a fourteen year old boy made an astonishing
discovery: he found eight sets of remains. What
followed was a long identification investigation
by scientists, historians, a genealogist, and the
families of the soldiers themselves. Through
all this the families learn about their history
(In the Fabien’s Garden – CBC/SRC, Canada).
The children of Syria are often the forgotten
18
victims in the on-going civil war. More than
eleven thousand children have been killed and
over a million are now refugees. Syria’s largest
city, Aleppo, has become engulfed by fighting
between pro and anti-regime groups and over
two thousand children have been killed there.
Schools have shut, food is in serious shortage
and there is the constant threat of shelling,
sniper fire and kidnapping. Against this stark
backdrop, Marcel Mettelsiefen spent nine
months filming the moving story of five young
children whose lives have been changed forever
by the war in Syria (Children on the Frontline –
Channel 4 – United Kingdom).
Political, Economic and Social Issues
Taro Tomihiro is a successful sales manager who
has devoted his entire life to work. However, at
the age of 58, he decides to leave his company
under Japan’s early retirement programme. Taro
has been dreaming up a plan to use his
retirement package to buy an RV, but his wife
rejects the idea and his daughter suggests that
he goes back to work. Although Taro tries to
find a new job, he discovers that entering the
job market is far more difficult than he imagined
and visiting an employment agency only makes
him realise how few marketable skills he has. As
a result, Taro’s physical and mental health
slowly begin to deteriorate (Finding Life after 55
- Episode 1: the Camping Car – NHK, Japan).
Thousands of refugees risk their lives every year
to reach the EU. Only a minority is permitted
legal entry and the majority is forced to make
deals. This documentary presents exclusive
insights into the workings of the smugglers by
documenting how a group of men is being
brought across the border to Bulgaria from
Istanbul (ZDFzeit: Risky Journey - Europe and the
Refugees – ZDF, Germany). 1989 – Miklós
Németh, Hungary’s new prime minister, decides
to remove the expensive border control
apparatus from the state budget. However,
Nemeth’s decision has set him up against
formidable adversaries and communist
hardliners. A young East German couple is
caught up in the political power game: the
young man is finally shot dead at the border.
This tragic event paradoxically accelerates
Nemeth’s final decision to open up the borders.
Soon after, the Berlin Wall falls (1989 – A
Statesman Opens up – ZDF, Germany). Fall
1974, French President Valery Giscard
d’Estaing puts his Health Minister, Simone Veil,
in charge of a daunting task : to carry the
abortion lax. Over three days, she will defend
her text before parliamentarians with exemplary
tenacity. Diane, a young journalist, makes it the
subject of her first investigation, and discovers
during her investigation a considerable change
in women’s social status (The Law – France 2,
France). The year is 1949, and Hungary has
once again descended into darkness. Now in
total control of the country, Mátyás Rákosi obeys
his Soviet masters and prepares to stage the
most spectacular show trial the country has ever
seen. A production on such a scale not only
requires scriptwriters and actors, but also
cameramen and directors (Cinema Inferno –
MTVA, Hungary). A documentary pretends to be
the travel notebook that the main character,
Clara, gives to Philip on his 25th birthday which
coincides with the anniversary of the fall of the
wall. It has been made with animation
techniques to recreate the wall and help viewers
understand what the place was like, where it
was built. Inphografics are also included to
describe some of the most tragic moments of its
history (The Night of Berlin – RTVE, Spain).
Belgian journalist Phara de Aguirre travels
across the world to meet people who sought
asylum in Belgium, but were sent back to their
country of origin. In the first episode Phara
travels to Kosovo to meet the Berisha family.
They came to Belgium in 2007, tried to obtain
Belgian papers, but were returned to Kosovo in
2013 (Exit Belgium – VRT, Belgium). Ne Me
Quitte Pas is a Belgian drama about life on the
brink of society in all its beauty, modesty and
irony. The authenticity of the main characters is
painful and confronting, yet entertaining and
utterly charming. It is a story about mortality in
a place where time seems to stand still (Ne me
quitte pas – NPO, The Netherlands). August
16th, 1958. Two Hungarian immigrants break
into the Hungarian embassy in Bern and take
the ambassador hostage. A tense hostage
drama, packed with plot twists, plays out
behind the closed doors of the embassy. The
screenplay by Norbert Köbli is based on a true
story about the aftermath of the 1956
Hungarian Revolution (The Ambassador to Bern
– MTVA, Hungary). Desperate for a male heir,
Henry VIII wishes to have his marriage to
Katherine of Aragon annulled. When Cardinal
Wolsey fails to deliver this annulment, he is
dismissed as Lord Chancellor. Wolsey’s sole
hope of returning to the King’s favour lies in the
ever loyal Thomas Cromwell, who manoeuvres
a Bill through Parliament recognising Henry as
head of the Church of England, thereby
enabling Henry to marry Anne Boleyn (Wolf
Hall – BBC, United Kingdom). June 5th, 2013,
the first revelations arising from the documents
provided by ex-NSA Employee Edward
Snowden were published in “The Guardian”.
His documents exposed top-secret United States
and British government mass surveillance
programmes so that the 29-year old computer
specialist became the ‘USA’s public enemy
number one’, turning him into a major pawn on
the chessboard of international politics. After
applying for asylum in 20 countries, it is
Russia’s Putin who comes to his rescue
(Snowden’s Great Escape – DR, Denmark).
Charles J Haughey remains the most compelling
figure of modern Irish politics. There are many
reasons for this, not least his charisma, the
19
grandiose lifestyle, the sense that here was a
politician of enormous potential with vision and
extraordinary ambition not just for himself, but
for his country. That at least was how his
supporters regarded him. Others saw something
else. Although many adored him, just as many
were suspicious of his motives and the source of
his wealth (Charlie – RTÉ, Ireland). A new
television theatrical production about Jan Karski
aired on Polish TV Program 2 in mid-December
2014, as part of its centennial celebrations. The
show included several levels of narrative with a
story about two young people rushing to create
a docu-fiction about Karski and a story of
Karski’s life during World War II (Jan Karski –
TVP, Poland). The rich and explosive story of the
decline of the British Empire and the birth of
modern India. It is the summer of 1932 and
India dreams of Independence, but the British
are clinging to power. In the foothills of the
Himalayas stands Simla, a little England where
every summer the British power-brokers of this
nation are posted to govern during the summer
months. At the heart of Simla’s society is
Cynthia, in her 60s, widowed, doyenne of the
Royal Club. Her influence spreads throughout
the community (Indian Summers – Channel 4,
United Kingdom). Through the entwined lives of
a successful journalist, a former bodyguard
turned parliamentarian, an enriched society
reporter and a former anti-Communist, we are
thrust into the brutal and terrifying reality of
today’s Bulgaria. Gueorgui Balabanov’s
unbiased, yet indulgent lens focuses on these
tragic comic stories danced by the country’s
new capitalist élite, resulting in a grotesque
portrayal of Bulgaria today. But this film not
merely depicts a country adrift, but sketches an
entire contemporary world rocked by doubts
and by the end of utopias (And the Party goes
on and on – Arte France, France). As peace is
declared after the American Revolution, slavers
go to New York in search of runaway slaves.
20
Aminata is offered a job by the British Navy to
help recruit Black Loyalists to join them in
Canada as free citizens. Aminata registers
thousands in The Book Of Negroes (The Book of
Negroes – Episode 4 – CBC/SRC, Canada).
Rainer Voss was one of Germany’s leading
investment bankers. Daily, he made exorbitantly
high profits. Now he is sitting in an abandoned
bank in downtown Frankfurt and, for the first
time, talks. Publicly and without frills he is letting
us look behind the facades and mechanisms of
diligently sealed off system (Master of the
Universe – ARD, Germany). France: the world’s
heroin sanctuary, a paradise for the Mafia, a
drug-trafficking hub set against a background of
internal police wars, clandestine labs and yé-yé
pop music. This was the era of the French
Connection, with its Corsican godfathers,
Marseilles gangsters, turncoats, informers, oldschool cops and thousands dead from
overdoses on American sidewalks. A mythical
tale, worthy of a film noir. How did Marseilles
become the unconditional supplier of heroin to
the United States? (French Connection – France
3, France ). Inelet is a hamlet in a Reservation.
Nothing changes, except what nature does. But
they vote in Inelet. It is the only moment when
our Europe, a comfortable one, climbs to reach
them. After that quiet returns to Inelet. No
doctors, no stores, no electricity. It’s the best
place for a fugue…(Book a Fugue – TVR,
Romania). Yvan Sorel runs a MMA (Mixed
Martial Arts) club in Marseille’s “Quartier nord”,
a district in the city. Day after day, all on his
own, with no support from the state, which gave
up on this area a long time ago, he fights to
keep the children and teenagers on the right
path. A film about violence, education, moral
values, faith and dignity (Spartiates – SRG SSR,
Switzerland). A story of an American football
team in Poland and the friendship of its three
main characters, Krzysztof, Sebastian and
Marcin, all members of the Seahawks Gdynia
team, brought together by the passion they
share. There are many things that divide them,
but playing together lifts these very barriers
(Unstoppables – HBOE, Pan-European
Broadcasters).
Stories of Friendship and Love
13 seniors, each of them with their own hopes,
desires, conflicts and problems. What unites
them is the longing for intimacy to escape their
loneliness. They opt for speed dating, an event
at which each man and each woman have
seven minutes to get to know each other and
bravely open themselves to a stranger of the
opposite sex (Autumn Tingles – Speed Dating
for Silver Hairs – ARD, Germany). Venice 1944.
Max is a Hebrew student, his family has been
deported. He lives hidden, but does not want to
escape since he deeply loves Hélène, daughter
of the French honorary consul, a Nazi and antiSemitic. When Max is arrested, Hélène decides
to follow him.....(Max and Hélène – RAI, Italy).
Juliet Capulet was raised hating the Montagues.
Romeo Montague, twenty years old, the leader
and the heir of his house, has little doubts
about his life, but after he meets Juliet’s eyes
he finally finds something that’s worth fighting
for: his love. To save their new found love the
two young lovers will face overwhelming odds.
At the end, only Romeo and Juliet’s tragic
death will move their families to understand
how foolish their hate was (Romeo and Juliet
– Mediaset/RTI, Italy). A frustrated 40-year
old, Vera, stuck in a rut, is obsessed with the
idea she will never fall in love again and will
never live “la vie en rose”. Therefore she listens
with both her heart and her soul to predictions
revealed by Turkish coffee grounds that she will
indeed meet her Mr. Right….(Panic – RTVSLO,
Slovenia).
Stories of Young and Women
The story of three adventurers in search of
the history of the Vespa: Italy! The three men
stop at interesting sightseeing spots, they
savour the local culture as well as the local
cuisine. At least, that’s their intention…They’re
accompanied and assisted by their fixer Haldis,
who more than once gets them into trouble.
So, the journey takes quite a lot longer and the
adventures turn out differently than expected
(The Biker Boys – VRT, Belgium). Amsterdam
1945. Otto Frank is back from Auschwitz.
He survived the Holocaust, but his beloved
family did not. Otto Frank’s secretary had kept
his daughter’s diary, notebooks and a rich
collection of loose leaves where Anne describes
the bans that make life almost impossible
for Jews in Amsterdam and elsewhere. She
reports the flight of the Frank family, her difficult
relationship with her mother Edith and the
stricken community in hiding in Prinsengracht
263. Otto begins to transcribe the diary. On
doing this, Otto Frank has to come to terms with
just how little he knew about his daughter Anne
(My Daughter Anne Frank – ARD, Germany).
Jongbun is an old woman who lives hand to
mouth by knitting, and she is still haunted by
her old memories. In 1944, she was living with
her mother and little brother Jonggil. They were
stricken with poverty brought on by Japanese
exploitation. Jongbun and Yeongae met on
the train to Manchuria, destined to become
“comfort women” for the Japanese military.
Jongbun and Yeongae became friends and
helped each other through a life which was
worse than hell. With the war coming to an
end, they finally found a chance to escape
from the comfort women camp (Snowy Path –
KBS, South Korea). We did it on a song is a
social documentary and off-beat musical that
tells the turbulent yet poetic tale of a gang of
17 year olds in a French city hard hit by the
21
economic crisis. The ideas for the songs sprung
from the teenagers themselves and brought
into being by the production team who created
the text, music and images. In the songs, the
harsh reality expressed in the text gives way
to magic, humour and dreams (We did it on
a Song – France 2, France). Isabel remembers
her parents, Amélia and Joaquim. The story
begins in 1923 in Carrazeda de Ansiães, a
small northern village, with the marriage of
Amélia and Joaquim, a poor farmer. Nine
months later, Isabel is born. In 1939, Joaquim
buys a house in Porto. Amélia and Isabel fall
in love with the city. But Joaquim starts causing
problems for his family… (April Women – RTP,
Portugal). Pinja was just six years old when
she was taken into care, due to the drug abuse
of her mother, Carita. While living with her
foster family, Pinja’s connection to her mother
was broken. That was until Pinja herself started
using intoxicants. Through speed Pinja was
able to reconnect with her mother. A strong
bond of friendship formed between mother
and daughter, while Pinja spent her teenage
years in a fog, in the company of her mother.
In her twenties, Pinja decides she wants to start
a new life, and goes into rehab. But how will
her mother react to this? (Drug Diaries – YLE,
Finland). Vivi Ferrari – a stunning Andrea
Jonasson – is a diva. In every sense of the
word: whimsical, passionate, always over
the top. Above all, she is someone loathed
to surrendering to the passage of time. Her
deteriorating health compels her daughter,
Alexis to move her to a nursing home in
Switzerland and this now looks like the end
of the road for our drama queen. However...
the show must go on… (Old Fools – SRG SSR,
Switzerland). Twenty one years after the death
of Rai Journalist Ilaria Alpi, a programme
attempts to answer the many questions still open
surrounding the case. The in-depth analysis of a
large amount of recently declassified material,
22
especially secret service info and uncut video
filmed during Ilaria Alpi’s trips to Somalia, has
enabled light to be thrown on the murder of the
journalist and her Cameraman Miran Hrovatin.
What was the secret Ilaria Alpi discovered that
cannot be told? (Ilaria Alpi – The Final Journey
– RAI, Italy). The lives, thoughts and everyday
routine of Pakistan’s women. A reportage filmed
between KPK, a northern province located on
the border with Afghanistan, and Islamabad,
throwing light on the changes and challenges
faced daily by these women. They move like
shadows in the torrid Asian summer and if
they leave home, it is always accompanied by
a man. Domestic violence figures in Pakistan
rank among the highest in the world, where
arranged marriages are frequent and the burqa
is the rule. However inside the social fabric
characterised by diktats and familism, some
women nonetheless manage to carve out a life
for themselves (Laila and the Other Women –
SMRTV, Republic of San Marino). In the Western
world, a woman is not allowed to age, she
is supposed to be beautiful, wrinkle-free and
vibrant. In this film we meet five ladies who
live in one of Ljubljana’s homes for the elderly.
Despite their venerable age they love life, even
though they merely observe the outside world
from a chair by the window. Modern society
treats the elderly as redundant relics of the past,
who have nothing left but to wait for death.
However, their love of life is so stunning as to
makes us think (Hindsight – RTVSLO, Slovenia).
Stories of Families
A drama series about being a family at a time
when every traditional family pattern underwent
radical changes. Signe, the daughter given
up for adoption, has inherited Grönnegaard.
Gro and Frederik are in Thailand trying to
help out their jailed brother Emil. Frederik has
however his own agenda when visiting Emil in
jail. Frederik and Gro get into a serious fight.
Thomas is paid a visit by his young girlfriend
Isa, who has come to pick up their newborn
baby, Melody, Signe´s work in the fields is
being challenged by nature and finances while
also posing a serious threat to Signe´s vision
about farming (The Legacy II – DR, Denmark).
After 25 years of absence, Joris returns to
Horizonville the land of his youth, to honour
the memory of his father who died one year
ago. He lands in the middle of a tinderbox:
his childhood rival, Raymond Héritier, wants
to buy the service station of his father, Virgil.
In deciding to stay, Joris will unleash an
uncontrollable series of events and force him to
confront the demons of his past (Station Horizon
– SRG SSR, Switzerland). Incessant rain falls
on Zagreb. That day Janko finally decides to
take the threads of his life in his own hands.
For him this means, above all else, an attempt
to establish a relationship with Iva who he has
wanted to approach for some time followed
by dealing with his aging father Franjo. Iva
and Franjo have their own secrets they don’t
want to keep to themselves and also ideas
of how this rainy day should go. Someone
should, in the end, walk the dog (Walk the
Dog – HRT, Croatia). Four scouts drowned,
along with the young man who tried to save
them. The investigation uncovers unforgivable
mistakes and negligence by the staff of the
fundamentalist and radical Catholic association
run by the Priest Vialard. Two women, mothers
who lost their children in the tragedy, decide
to take the matter to court, something that
brings them closer together (In the name of
the sons – France 3, France). A drama series
with a touch of humour, follows the lives of two
families from Zagreb at the beginning of the
1980s. Their daily adventures are intertwined
with social events, rituals and habits of that
time. This series is a living image of Zagreb in
the “new age”, with its concerts, parties, rock
bands, youth magazine newsrooms, cult bars
and rock clubs where trends were formed and
from where the generation somewhat naively
looked towards a “better future” (Black and
White World, episode 3 – Women and Men
– HRT, Croatia). The story of two couples from
opposite social and cultural backgrounds,
who could not be more different. Katarina and
Frank have been living together for years. They
are still in love, yet cannot stand each other.
They invite over their neighbours, Jenna and
Thomas, who have just had a child. An evening
during which the sham, taboos, masks fall one
after the other (Demons – Arte France, France).
Mikko is a father of three and happily married.
But he is also the son of a drunk. His father’s
alcoholism has been present throughout his life,
and indeed still continues to be. Raised as the
son of a drunk is a different kind of growing up:
the children of an alcoholic must be adults for
their own parents. The children bear the shame,
cover-ups, anger, the keeping up of facades, the
inferiority, over-niceness… What happens when
they themselves become adults? (Childhood
Messages in a Bottle – Episode 1/6 – YLE,
Finland). Fokke Augustinus is a sharp forensic
psychiatrist, working with the criminally insane.
He suffers from severe father-issues and his
inability to communicate with the ones dearest
to him is costing him his family. In a bold move
to give his marriage one last chance, he moves
his family to the farm he has inherited from
his father, where he grew up and from which
he fled long ago: Holland’s Hope (Holland’s
Hope – NPO, The Netherlands). Letting small
children for adoption to other people is always
a risk, especially when the new “parents” are
foreigners. The story begun in 90’s, when an
American couple arrived in Poland to adopt five
siblings. Soon after the adoption trial verdict,
the children landed in the suburbs of St. Louis.
Then, the 40 year old woman suddenly became
pregnant – and the Browns started to get rid of
23
their legally adopted children… the dream of a
better life overseas turned into a nightmare (The
Promise of a Happy Childhood – TVP, Poland).
Toto (10) and his sisters, Andrea (14) and Ana
(17), are waiting for their mother to come back
home on release from prison. A convicted drug
dealer, she has been sentenced to seven years
for her crimes, leaving her three children to fend
for themselves, supposedly in the care of her
brothers, themselves drug dealers and addicts.
As they grow up, each learns how to survive on
their own, hoping that when their mother returns
the family will be reunited (Toto and his sisters –
HBOE, Paneuropean broadcasters).
into a blazing inferno after a runaway train
exploded in the town centre. Immobilized and
left unattended, the train had somehow started
moving and by the time it reached Lac-Mégantic
it was travelling at over 100 km/ h. Forty seven
of the town’s residents perished, trapped by
the flames. A documentary follows the scientific
and technical investigation of the Transportation
Safety Board of Canada into one of the worst
railway disasters in Canadian history (LacMégantic: Enquête sur une catastrophe – CBC/
SRC, Canada).
News Stories
Built 450 years ago, Valletta has changed its
entrance no less than four times. Now, for the
fifth, World-famous Architect Renzo Piano has
provided the city with an entrance that bestows
dignity to the past whilst looking to the future.
Comprising the old Opera House ruins and
a new Parliament Building, the project has
attracted both admiration and controversy.
As Valletta prepares itself to tell its own story
as European Capital of Culture 2018, the
making of this project is as intriguing as its
legacy (Valletta – The City of Colors – PBS,
Malta). A programme about one of the most
bizarre moments in Danish art history: The
Hellene Movement. In the 1890s the later
well-known manufacturer, Gunnar Sadolin,
decided to found a summer camp for young
artists out on Røsnæs at Kalundborg. Inspired
by ancient Greece, Sadolin and his male
colleagues painted and exercised outdoors in
God-created nature…preferably without a shred
of clothing. Among the first Danish vitalist the
Hellene Movement caused an uproar, a scandal
at the time, while Gunnar Sadolin is today
considered the first Danish vitalist artist (The
Rebels of the Art History: the Naked Hellene
(1894-1902) – DR, Denmark). A new TV
programme which marries science and modern-
The Zodiac Murders series does not aspire
to rank among other popular crime serials;
it seeks to become altogether new, modern.
The leitmotif is the signs of the zodiac. Each
of the twelve episodes deals with a mysterious
crime, featuring characteristics associated with
the respective sign (No Prize for the Winner
– The Zodiac Murders – CTV, Czech Republic).
Seven years after the mystical disappearance
of her daughter Josefin, police investigator Eva
Thörnblad is still trying to cope with the grief of
her own loss. Josefin was said to have drowned,
but Eva has a feeling she is still alive. When a
young boy goes missing in the same forest, Eva
decides to return to her hometown of Silverhöjd
to investigate whether the boy’s disappearance
is related to her missing daughter (Jordskott –
SVT, Sweden). At least 67 people were killed,
more than 200 injured when the Westgate
Mall in Nairobi was attacked by four terrorists
on 21 September 2013. One of the terrorists
was from a small, quiet town on the coast in
Norway. His name was Hassan Dhuhulow
and this film tells the story of his life (Portrait of
a Mall Terrorist – NRK, Norway). On July 6th
2013, Lac-Mégantic was suddenly transformed
24
Art
day technology with local art through the
rigorous and painstaking work of the restorer.
The audience will be able to learn about the
fascinating processes of art restoration, discover
some of Malta’s finest works of art and learn
about the science behind the methods used
to bring the aged pieces back to their former
glory (The Science of Art – PBS, Malta). Tove
Jansson became world famous for her books
about the Moomins, but her artistry was so
much more than the good-natured creatures
that have captured the hearts of both children
and adults the world over. Jansson was a
versatile and prolific artist and author, who
above all considered herself a painter. With
her multifaceted life’s work, Jansson became
one of the key artists in Finnish visual art during
the post-war golden age of Modernism (Escape
from the Moomin Valley – YLE, Finland).
Other Forms of Art:
Literature and Entertainment
The Saitama Gold Theatre is an unusual
theatrical troupe of professional elderly actors.
Led by internationally renowned Theatre
Director Yukio Ninagawa, the actors’ average
age is 75. In 2014, they began preparing for
a major performance at the prestigious Theatre
de la Ville in Paris. This programme looks at
the inner strengths of people who strive to stay
young at heart and live their lives to the fullest
(Applause! Yukio Ninagawa and his Senior
Troupe – NHK, Japan). A tribute to Eduardo De
Filippo on the 30th anniversary of his death.
Moreover, the question is also put to those
who worked with Eduardo, who lived with
him on and off the stage as well as to those
who had related to him. Exclusive interviews
are aimed at delving into the universal
bearing of his works. Sand animations by
“sand artist” Gabriella Compagnone are a
reminder of the Edwardian soul and theatrical
spirit, since sand drawings, just like theatrical
performance, vanish from sight but linger in
our hearts (What makes Eduardo Eduardo?
– TV2000, Italy). A 6-episode documentary
series broaches, via a theatrical treatment
of authentic stories, the subject of political
power in the past, which affected people’s
private lives using practices of the communist
governments’ secret police. Nine people - nonactors, nine authentic stories in the section
devoted to Germany. A former student of
theology, a convinced socialist, a teacher who
refused to cooperate with the Stasi, a man
who jailed because he failed to inform about
his friends preparing to take flight ... including
an unofficial Stasi collaborator, working for
this organization for twenty five years (Parallel
Lives - Part 3: Catharsis – RTVS, Slovakia).
Astrid Lindgren’s books have sold 150 million
copies and she is one of the world’s ten most
widely-read authors. Astrid Lindgren was born
in 1907 and grew up in a small town in rural
Sweden. Throughout her life she bears traces
of a secret which she turns into stories about
strong girls and lonely boys. She became
Astrid to a whole nation, an icon to a whole
world. A female pioneer, who influenced both
politics and the public debate, Astrid Lindgren
taught us respect for the children and was
an activist against war, racism and nuclear
power (Astrid Lindgren – SVT, Sweden). A
documentary commissioned to mark RTÉ’s
2015 celebration of poetry. This visually-rich
film roller-coasters through the history of poetry
in Ireland, from the earliest times to the present
day. It charts via performance, interview,
animation, archive and dramatic reconstruction
the central role that poetry and poets have
played in the story of Ireland (A Rebel Act:
Poems That Shaped Ireland – RTÉ, Ireland). The
story of three extraordinary brothers who grew
up in a deprived neighbourhood in Vienna,
25
Austria and their rapid rise to world fame as
handstand artists in the 1950s and ‘60s. The
Carsony Brother’s one-arm handstands on
walking canes, champagne bottles or bowling
balls, with a dazzling sprinkle of charm and
humour, were a world sensation. A moving
film about life’s great ambitions and dreams
that come true (The Carsony Brothers – From
Vienna to Las Vegas – ORF, Austria). A multicomponent public television project that is
building a comprehensive video resource on
the Complete Plays of William Shakespeare
– for television, online and educational use.
The series explores the text and the context of
Shakespeare’s plays in programmes presented
by some of the world’s most legendary actors
and directors (Shakespeare uncovered: series
2 – CPB/PBS, USA).
Other Forms of Art:
Cinema, Photography
Irena Blühová (1904 -1991) is the first
photographer who in the early years of the
CzechRepublic took pictures of the countryside
and villagers in the post-feudal Slovakia of the
20’s. In 1933, she was also the first in Slovakia
to photograph a male nude. Irena Blühová was
also the first member of the City Council, the
first Slovak student at the Bauhaus! ... the first
bookseller, while she also smuggled Austrian
and Hungarian communists persecuted by the
fascists (The First One: Irena Blühová – RTVS,
Slovakia). Hockney is the definitive exploration
of one of the most significant artists of his
generation. For the first time, David Hockney
has permitted access to his personal archive
of photographs and film, resulting in an
unparalleled visual diary of a long life (Hockney
– BBC, United Kingdom).
26
Other Forms of Art:
Music and Dance
Virgilio Sieni, born in 1957, has been a
star of Italian contemporary dance since the
early ‘80s. He is the director of the Venice
Dance Biennial. An internationally famous
choreographer and dancer, trained in both
classical and contemporary dance initially
in Amsterdam, then in New York and Tokyo,
Virgilio Sieni has also studied the visual
arts, architecture and martial arts. RAI 5 has
dedicated to Sieni a 2-hour programme. The
show was divided into three distinct sections,
recorded in February 2014 at Cango - Cantieri
Goldonetta in Florence (Spring Exercises – RAI,
Italy). The film offers viewers an insight into
the family life of the famous Czech Composer
Antonín Dvorák. His wife Anna gave him
nine children and created a perfect creative
environment for him. Nevertheless Dvoøák’s
muse and secret, unfulfilled love was her sister,
Countess and Actress Josefina Kounicová
(The American Letters – CTV, Czech Republic).
A programme that looks at dance from the
perspective of feet and their shoes as a way of
touching on technique, physiology, pain and
pleasure, history, symbols, intention, fetishism,
psychoanalysis, fashion, etc. This exploration
of the foot’s many aspects gives us the freedom
to tackle every conceivable dance form,
from classical to post-modern, from African
to hip-hop, from gumboot to Flamenco, from
contemporary dance to cabaret or jazz (Let’s
dance! Clap your feet – Arte France, France).
Czech Choreographer Jiří Kylián has been
living and working in the Netherlands since
1968, and it is difficult to imagine the world
of international modern dance without him.
In 2013 he bade farewell to the Nederlands
Dans Theater with the restaging of his bestknown choreographies: Vanishing Twin, Tar and
Feathers and Claude Pascal. The programme
follows this remarkable project from the very
outset and rehearsals right through to the final
performance. Kylián stands onstage, waving
to his audience for the very last time (Jiří Kylián
– CTV, Czech Republic). The Toots Sessions is a
music project of VRT in which Flemish artists get
the chance to show their music in a different
way and in an intimate and unique setting.
Studio Toots is a professional recording studio
at the Belgian public broadcast service. In this
episode the young band “Oscar and the Wolf”
plays 5 songs, including a cover of the nineties
hit ‘Freed from Desire’ (The Toots Sessions
2014: Oscar & the Wolf – VRT, Belgium).
Classica HD offers an insight into a musical
institution which is not solely a straightforward
school, but the dream of a great musician
come true. Founded by Violist Piero Farulli in
1974, a member of the legendary Quartetto
Italiano, the Music School of Fiesola has for
the past forty years been a major international
keystone. A bedrock of teaching which, since
its foundation, has offered an alternative to
conservative systems, placing emphasis on
the value of playing together as a formative
experience for pupils from the very outset of
their studies (Playing together – Classica HD,
Italy). An unforgettable night to honour the city
of light in the world famous Musée d’Orsay!
Internationally renowned opera singers such
as Felicity Lott, Anne Catherine Gillet, Magali
Léger, Julien Behr, Benjamin Bernheim, Vannina
Santoni sing arias, French ‘chansons’, As well
as both classical and popular tunes that capture
the best of that effervescent and inimitable city,
Paris! (Paris Celebrates – France 3, France).
Portrait of the Flemish-Moroccan choreographer
Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, one of the most versatile
and successful dance artists of our times. The
documentary follows him as he travels all over
Europe. As the film observes him creating and
performing widely different styles of dance,
he talks in an interior monologue about what
lies behind his irrepressible urge to dance
(The Need to Dance - NPO, The Netherlands).
The Concert de Paris, free of charge and in
the open air in front of the Eiffel Tower, has
attracted the biggest names on the opera
scene in a demanding and unifying musical
programme. Many artists agreed to be there
along with 220 musicians and choral artists
from the French National orchestra to celebrate
14th July, Bastille Day or French National
Day. The musical programme was created
by Daniele Gatti around a strong theme of
War and Peace in 2014, as we marked the
centenary of the First World War (The Concert
of Paris 2014 – France 2, France). A musical
documentary presenting the Fukushima Kodály
Choir’s passion for Hungarian culture and
music through the work and personality of
their founder, Furiya Miyako. A programme
depicting the Fukushima nuclear disaster and
subsequent recovery through the personal
struggles and tragedies of the singers
themselves. Our cameras visit the venues where
tragedy struck together with the choristers
and offers an insight into their daily lives
(Pentatom – MTVA, Hungary). Jill Johnson is
Sweden’s biggest country music star. In each
episode of the series she invites a Swedish
artist to Nashville, USA, to perform a song
together with her. But apart from the music,
every episode also highlights a social theme,
like racism in country music, homophobia or
poverty. In the second episode the traditionalist
and conservative Nashville is truly tested, when
Swedish lesbian feminist Kakan (”Cookie”)
Hermansson comes to town (Jill’s Porch,
Nashville – SVT, Sweden). Born in 2004, it is
set to be one of the most significant musical
events in the Republic of San Marino. The high
number of applications, the outstanding quality
of the participants from all over the world, the
distinguished jury and the rich prize money
makes it one of the most prestigious Piano
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Competitions in the world. The 6th edition took
place in September 2014 and the winner was
the young Russian pianist Alexei Melnikov
(International Piano Competition Republic of
San Marino – SMRTV, Republic of San Marino).
On Saturday 29th March 2014, same-sex
marriage became legal in England and Wales
and Channel 4 marked this historic milestone
by offering viewers front row seats at one of the
first gay weddings. But this is an extraordinary
ceremony in more ways than one. Grooms
Benjamin Till and Nathan Taylor are writing and
staging their entire wedding as a musical – with
sung vows, sung readings and show-stopping
ensembles featuring the whole congregation
of family, friends and special guests, songs
from some very special surprise guest stars
and showbiz legends (Our Gay Wedding:
The Musical – Channel 4, United Kingdom).
Enzo Cosimi’s Heat, first staged in 1982,
was discovered by Theatre Critic Giuseppe
Bartolucci. With its strikingly penetrating
insight into the energy of youth, Heat is a
groundbreaking work performed by Cosimi
together with his three non-dancer friends. Thirty
years on from its debut, Heat has been revived
thanks to the Enzo Cosimi Company and the
performance of four electrifying young dancers
(Heat – Classica HD, Italy).
Science (and a Touch of Science Fiction),
Medicine
A Japanese youth with severe autism wrote
a book of essays entitled The Reason I Jump.
Authored by Naoki Higashida, it reveals the
inner heart of an autistic person and became
an international bestseller, translated into over
20 languages. This success is due to author
David Mitchell, who has himself an autistic son.
David felt that his own son was speaking to
him through Naoki’s words, providing insight
into such behaviour as head banging and
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uncontrolled vocalisation. He translated the
essays into English to help other families around
the world who grapple with autism (What
You Taught Me about My Son – NHK, Japan).
Here is one man living in a dystopian world.
Traumatized as a young child, it was difficult
for him to deal with his childhood trauma so
he created another personality to cope with his
pain! But the split personality turns out to have
splintered into a third, fourth, fifth, sixth and
seventh. He quietly seeks medical help and is
diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder
(Kill Me, Heal Me – MBC, South Korea). The
Department of Time is a secret and independent
government body that is directly attached to
the Prime Minister’s Office. The passage to
other ages is through a series of gates that
are monitored by the Ministry’s Patrols. Their
objective: to detect any intrusion and prevent
any culprit from the past travelling to the present
- or vice versa - in order to use history to their
own advantage (The Department of Time –
RTVE, Spain).
Peoples, Religion and Traditions
The Little Company of Mary came to Korea 50
years ago and opened the Calvary Clinic, the
first hospice in Korea and in Asia. The Little
Company of Mary is known as Blue Veil, an
order that serves to be a friend to those who
are dying. The nuns spend time with people
facing death (Moments with the Blue Veils –
KBS, South Korea). A story suspended between
nature and poetry, to learn more about the
people of Lampedusa and the distinguishing
traits of their vocation to welcome visitors. The
personal stories, intertwined with the setting of
this extraordinary island and sea, are narrated
by the director, and by renowned writer Erri
De Luca. These stories develop into a journey
crossing places of sorrow, tormented landings,
endless waiting… but also joy, rescue and
hope. It is a short film about encounter, on
recognising and opening up to others – to the
stranger and to diversity – overcoming all fears
(LampeduSani – TV2000, Italy). Given the size
and the number of people, as well as its natural
and cultural UNESCO-protected sites, Croatia
is one of the world’s top nations. On the other
hand, a look at the credibility and morality of
Croatian politicians and it probably lies at the
very bottom. This situation plunges Croatia from
potentially being an orderly and cultural country
to the depth of hypocrisy, corruption and a
lengthy stagnation (Utopia – HRT, Croatia).
Love and marriage is definitely the hottest issue
among young women since time immemorial.
This historical, romantic comedy TV film attempts
a twist in the well-known Korean fairy tales,
by assuming that the heroines of those stories
were actually friends and spinsters (Spinster
Diaries – MBC, South Korea). Ralph van der
Zijden grew up in Holland, in The Hague. He
studied sociology and international relations in
Amsterdam. Working for the Dutch government,
he started working in this region in international
politics. He frequently visited Belgrade, Zagreb
and Sarajevo and in time became very fond
of Belgrade. In 2011 he founded the tourist
agency “I Bike Belgrade”, organising bike
tours through Belgrade for foreign tourists (A
Foreigner in Serbia – SBC/RTS, Serbia). Lives
in search of fortune. An approximation to the
Chinese community living in Portugal which
gives voice to the experience of being Chinese
in this country, the difficulties, frustrations and
expectations. Although the Portuguese and
Chinese are very close and share the same
territorial space, the same society, they don’t
know each other (We the Chinese – RTP,
Portugal). Third, fourth and fifth generation
Korean-Russians set off on a great motor journey
from Moscow, bound for their homeland.
Travelling a path first traced 150 years ago,
they journey 15,000 km, crossing three Central
Asian states and, for the first time in history,
even the Korean Military Demarcation Line.
Young generations of Korean-Russians today
visit this divided homeland, imagining an
unified home country (Breaking Inter-Korean
Barriers: a Great Journey to the Motherland
in 150 Years – MBC, South Korea). Sister
Laura Girotto, a 70 years-old Salesian from
Turin, Italy, has been in Adwa, in the North of
Ethiopia, since 1994. In this town, in the Tigray
region, she has built a self-sufficient mission,
including a school attended by 1,500 children
and teens. Its students, though very poor, top
national merit rankings. In only 20 years this
nun has transformed Adwa, focusing on the
promotion of women and the adoption at a
distance. Her latest challenge is the construction
of a new hospital to replace the Italian hospital,
the fruit of colonialism (Adwa’ s Mother –
TV2000, Italy). Often humorous, always
moving, a programme explores life, death and
the afterlife. It’s the story of Glasnevin Cemetery
- Ireland’s national necropolis. The film has been
seen by 1 out of 10 people in Ireland, trended
#1 on Twitter during its broadcast on RTÉ & was
voted Best Irish Film of 2014 by the readers of
The Irish Times’. As a direct result of the film,
Glasnevin Cemetery & Museum has reported
an 87% increase in visitor numbers (One
Million Dubliners – RTÉ, Ireland) A programme
speaks of yesteryear through the memories
of those who wrote those chapters in history
living it. ‘Amarcord’ aims to rebuild a sort of
common memory, to create a TV choral tale put
together by the over 75s. This episode running
in the competition features only women, their
childhood memories and their struggles to bear
the hardship of yore (I Remember San Marino
and its Surroundings – SMRTV, Republic of San
Marino).
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WEB COMPETITION
Trends:
Trans-Media and Crowd-Sourced Projects
I
f the Internet has so pervasively entered
our lives, it is because web projects
have today broken free from the chains
of the traditional website that had been
designed for desktop computer surfing. Our
Web Competition has for several years been
featuring the very latest examples of innovation
– fully trans-medial products spanning online,
on traditional broadcasting platforms, even
in books, newspapers, comic books, posters,
exhibitions and other events. Many of these
are participatory projects, succeeding in
actively involving local or broader communities
– sometimes even tens of thousands of people.
DR (Denmark) is a veteran of big trans-media
participated projects: having already won
3 awards in the last three editions of our
Competition, it this year presents Next Stop
Home, a project connecting more than 30
million passengers annually travelling two bus
company routes in Denmark. Next Stop Home
spans among others on social media, radio,
web-TV, screens inside buses and stations,
the Metro Express newspaper. RTBF (Belgium)
presents another project firmly rooted in
everyday city life: Phone Booth Stories
celebrates the symbolic, emotional and cultural
value of telephone booths, just when this very
service in Belgium has been permanently
stopped. From a survey of cabins that still in
use and from many members of the public,
this project yielded a web documentary,
radio and social media campaigns, printed
fictions …. resulting in a complete crossmedia exploration. And speaking of daily
life in urban environments, mention must
also made of 100 Voices, a crowd-sourced
project from VRT (Belgium), to be described
30
in greater detail later. The Eurovision Song
Contest this year was co-produced by ORF
(Austria) and the final in Vienna registered a
record audience and number of connected
countries. The web coverage of one of the
biggest musical (and TV) hits of the year turned
out to be a global media event, with hundreds
of thousands of interactions during every
phase of the competition, culminating with the
#BuildingBridges social campaign. Sometimes,
however, a cross-media project, rather than
being planned in advance, gradually develops
from an initial successful idea, On a Plate by
RNZ (New Zealand) being a typical example.
Starting from a simple plate of animated
comic, and thanks to the extraordinary early
success and highlights on BoingBoing, Reddit
and Huffington Post, it has ballooned online
into an extraordinary cross-media cultural
debate. The examples mentioned so far refer
to trans-media projects related to social issues,
cultural and current affairs. But a trans-media
success can also derive from a fictional story.
This is precisely the case of the Anarchy
campaign by France Télévisions (France) which
created a rich trans-medial universe spanning
from the web to TV, to a weekly column on
Le Monde, developing a science fiction story
about the collapse of French society in the
wake of an economic crisis. The narrative has
been fueled not only by novelists, but also by
journalists and analysts elaborating plausible
plots based on online user suggestions. Finally,
Face your Fears by SRG SSR (Switzerland)
is a journey into the universe of fears, both
personal and universal, deep or shallow.
Starting from the examples given by famous
authors such as George RR Martin or HR
Giger, the project invites us to share our fears
and leave testimony, as part of a cathartic
process in the universality of fear.
Trends:
Gamification
User interaction is one of the most distinctive
features of the online experience. Over the
years the possibilities of interaction have
evolved and refined: without a shadow of
doubt the new frontier today is … gaming.
About a third of the projects in competition
features some sort of game action.
One example is Blowback by HTW Berlin
(Germany), which splits in two parts: a radio
science fiction drama set in a future dominated
by water shortage, and a mystery game that
enables interaction with the characters from
the story in a sophisticated experimental 3D
soundscape. But also other projects – The Last
Hours of Laura K by BBC (United Kingdom),
Corto Maltese by France Télévisions (France)
– are present as real online games, and in
many more gaming interaction is still a key
element. A game may allow you to explore
the options in the life of an ex-convict (The
Man with the Harpoon, RTBF, Belgium), to
delve into the historical tradition of your
country (A History of South-West Germany,
ARD, Germany), to discover the science to
come (Bistro in Vitro, Submarine Channel, The
Netherlands), and indeed much, much more.
We will examine in more detail these and other
projects, dividing them according to theme.
We have to list here two more projects where
gaming and user interaction go beyond merely
choosing options, and instead determine the
development of the storytelling itself. This is the
case of the aforementioned Anarchy (France
Télévisions, France), an example of trans-media
narrative where the results of the collective
choices from users guide the course of a TV
miniseries. A similar experiment, currently
in progress, is I’ll Be You Be Me (RAI, Italy,
part of the platform RAY, also in competition):
a game / competition where teenage girls
create characters inspired by their own stories
and dreams, due to be selected in the webseries. These two projects are still currently
experimental, but are expected to anticipate
narrative and production strategies growing
from strength to strength in the next few years.
Trends:
Web-Series and Spin-off from TV Series
The Web Competition does not have a category
specifically intended for the web-series: however
this year there are running in the competition
several web-series examples, provided that they
feature a rich trans-media experience and / or
complex online story-telling, fitting into either
category the competition.
RTBF (Belgium) presents two interesting
examples from its portfolio of productions:
Uh captures with freshness and irony the
indecision and lack of horizons facing a
thirty-something generation, who just can’t
emerge from adolescence. Typical pictures
the adventures of a group of Belgian students
with traits of grotesque surrealism. Also SVT
projects (Sweden) are devoted to exploring
the universe of young people: Doorcode 1525
follows the soapy rhythm of the story of a
couple of teenage girls, best friends, working
to define their personality interspersed with
love affairs and complex, sometimes tragic
family rollercoaster of emotions. Boobs to
the Wall tackles current issues and social
criticism from the humorous, feminist point
of view of the Kronlöfs sisters, authors and
performers. Besides “canonical” web-series,
the Web Competition showcases some other
examples of a trans-media spin-off of existing
TV series, companion, online games and other
bonuses which have become a significant
part of the classic TV series experience. In
addition to the already mentioned Anarchy
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(France Télévisions, France) and I’ll Be You
Be Me (RAI, Italy), and besides the case of
Unit 9 – The Webdocumentary (CBC/SRC,
Canada) which will be described later, the
Web Competition offers several other examples
of this established trend. ARD (Germany)
presents Blackout, a special Tatort+ instalment
celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Lena
Odenthal character from the popular crime
series: ​​this project is a detective story-like
online game featuring dozens of video footage
and hundreds of photos from the archives of
the series, along with new material produced
for the occasion. Dina Foxx - Deadly Contact
(ZDF, Germany) is a sequel to the famous and
award-winning Wer Rettet Dina Foxx? (2011,
already in competition at the Prix Italia), one
of the first major cross-media productions.
This new episode takes up and expands the
prototype: a TV movie flanked by a companion
web-series, an online game / interactive video.
A New Day (YLE, Finland) is a successful
example of natively cross-media comedy,
where the TV series is supported by a wide
range of online interactivity offering: users can
follow the adventures of the fictional town of
Virtaus on the radio, the website, social media
platforms .Their interactive contributions results
in a mix of real and fictional storytelling,
creating a unique and compelling narrative
universe. Finally, RAI (Italy) presents its new
online platform RAY, entirely dedicated to the
development of trans-media TV fiction. It is a
hybrid between a experimental lab seeking
new ways in serial storytelling, and a onestop-shop portal for the fans (especially the
youngster) of RAI TV series, where you can
find both companion and spin-offs of existing
series, plus new web-series, live streaming from
the sets, games and many other opportunities
for interaction.
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Trends:
Web-Documentaries, Web-Reportages
Almost half of the projects in competition
come with the typical structure of a webdocumentary / web-reportage, or something
very similar. Topics may range from ARD
(Germany) historical documentaries (A History
of South-West Germany, The Wall, The
Oktoberfest Attack), to investigative reports
from Internazionale (Italy) (The Dark Side of
the Italian Tomato) and to Submarine Channel
(The Netherlands) (Refugee Republic, Who
Are The Champions); from travel notebook
literature (Dreaming along the Trans-Siberian
by SRG SSR, Switzerland) to scientific matters
(Life on Us by Arte France, France). We
will address in detail each of these projects
and the many other web-documentaries in
competition, dividing them by theme. But it
is worth highlighting the great proliferation
of the genre. Web documentary is arguably
the online media format where broadcasters’
creativity, inn ovation and productive skills
have most improved in recent years. On top
of the flexibility and rich expressive palette
of the traditional documentary film, the webdoc has proved able to seamlessly integrate
itself into the new ecosystem of the web,
embracing all the trans-media potential in a
more complete and consistent manner, when
compared to, for example, online serial fiction.
Modern web-documentaries, such as those in
competition this year, are mature and complex
products mastering technologies and narrative
outcomes: they are open to exploration,
effortlessly integrating video, photos, drawings,
texts, music, interaction, games, social media
sharing.
Themes:
The Web that We Gaze at,
the Web that Gazes Us back
After a few years of absence from the Web
Competition, the theme of the Internet per se,
with its rules and mechanisms, is a hot topic
again. The main reason is the big debate about
privacy and online safety, recently brought to
the fore by some sensational news stories. Do
Not Track is a web-documentary by Arte France
(France), addressing the issue of collecting and
processing personal data, a practice that has
became more and more invasive, but also more
and more necessary for the development of
the web economy. As a demonstration, each
episode of the documentary gathers some user
data, and uses it to personalise the viewing
experience. A scenario even more disturbing
is investigated by Netwars / Out of CTRL, a
web documentary and online game presented
by ZDF (Germany), which addresses the issue
of Internet security and hacking. An enigmatic
merchant of secret information guides us to
understand what is a cyber attack, the market
of illegally obtained information, the risks to
personal and global security. In Limbo also
addresses the issue of personal information on
the web, however, reversing the point of view:
this Arte France (France) interactive movie poses
the question of what remains of our life stories
and personalities, once they have been split
up and mingled with the millions of others on
the web – and how we appear as seen from
the point of view of our own data, which form
the “brain” of the Internet. The website collects
information from our social media profiles,
and integrates them into the narrative and
the images of the film in real time, leading us
in a sensory and poetic journey through the
collective memory of the network. Also The
Last Hours of Laura K (BBC, United Kingdom) is
based on the idea that we always leave digital
traces and every moment of our life is recorded:
this builds for a compelling interactive mystery
drama. We can rummage in the last 24 hours
in the life of Laura Kitchens: a steady stream of
footage from surveillance cameras, telephone
calls, text messages, activity on social networks;
a huge amount of material often meaningless,
repetitive, boring just like normal everyday
life - except that Laura K was murdered, and
only by retracing her last hours alive we may
find the culprit. RAI’s (Italy) proposal is also
based on the themes of the Internet: Connected
Grandparents is a web-series inspired by
coaching programmes like “Dog Whisperer” or
“Hell’s Kitchen”. In each episode, a grandchild
asks a coach to help him connect their
grandparents to the Internet, showing them how
the web m ensure a more active social life.
Themes:
The World Far Away, the World Nearby
One great power of radio and TV is in that they
put us in contact with the world far away: they
bring into our homes dramatic images from all
over the planet, issues apparently unrelated
with our daily lives, yet deeply interwoven.
The global scope of the web further amplifies
this magnifying effect, stimulating us with a
proliferation of reportages and documentaries,
raising awareness on a larger scale. Our Web
Competition showcases many examples of how
the web can be used today to better inform
people.
The Dark Side of the Italian Tomato
(Internazionale, Italy) looks like a classic
reportage: an exploration of the perverse
aspects of the economy of Italian tomato, a
flagship of made-in-Italy but also a product to
export below cost to the same countries from
which many African workers come, illegally
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as they are exploited toiling in Italy’s fields.
Submarine Channel (The Netherlands) presents
two examples of trans-media reportage. Refugee
Republic tells the daily lives of Syrian refugees
in the camp of Domiz, Iraq, through a mix of
drawings, videos, photographs, sound and text.
Conceived as a tour guide with many planned
routes, the project allows to interactively explore
the camp, meet its people and learn about
their stories. Who are the Champions is a web
documentary exploring the economic, social
and cultural legacy that the World Cup has
left with the people living in the host cities. By
browsing the 36 interviews gathered in Rio
de Janeiro (2014), Johannesburg (2010) and
Leipzig (2008), we can take a different look
at all that precedes, accompanies and follows
the famous football games we all watched on
TV. ZDF (Germany) presents Last Hijack, an
online version of a documentary delving into
the phenomenon of piracy off the Somali coast,
from the point of view of a real pirate. This
project, by mixing documentary sequences
and scenes recreated in graphic animation,
features unique testimonies, telling the story of
the pirates’ families, digging into the economy
that leads to the acts of piracy, analyzing
how the mythology of the pirate has evolved
in Somali society. Finally, two very different
projects offer good examples of the “world
far away” becoming part of our societies and
cultures. Retrospect: War, Family, Afghanistan
by ABC (Australia) reports on the impact of the
Afghanistan war on Australian society through
the story of six veterans and their families,
gathering an interactive archive of memories
on the longest war in which Australia has ever
been involved. 100 Voices by VRT (Belgium)
portraits testimonies by ordinary Muslim people
living in Belgium. 100 Voices leaves no room
for recriminations, justifications and ideologies:
it mirrors the life of immigrants in a European
country, their daily stories narrated by them and
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made available without filters, in a wall of video
clips growing higher every day.
Themes:
Politics, News, Current Affairs
Many projects are this year dedicated to
current issues and live reportages: journalistic
covering of events, dossiers on major issues,
and so on. They have usually (but not always!)
grown quickly, springing from the need to report
about something happening right now, on the
moment - yet in these projects we recognize
many specific elements of modern online
communication at its best, in particular the
power of the web to connect people with topics
of immediate interest to them, to inform, raise
awareness and promote action.
Three competing projects are devoted to
election coverage in different countries.
The main goal of RNZ (New Zealand) when
dealing with the 2015 elections in New
Zealand was to stimulate debate and encourage
participation of young people – therefore its
Election 2015 coverage has developed mainly
on “The Wireless” web platform aimed at
young people, and has spread across many
related initiatives on the web. A young and
radical approach is that of Debattle, an app
by Sveriges Radio (Sweden) that allows you
to pick from among the political slogans from
the Swedish election campaign, and transform
them into “rappers battles” with custom
back beats. Finally, YLE (Finland) presents
Candidate Gallery, an effort to map the
1,800+ candidates in the Finnish elections in a
neutral and uniform way, recording short video
interviews based on 35 pre-defined questions.
A test enables us to answer the very same
questions, and verify how far our political views
stand from those of the selected candidates.
Three projects deal with the daily coverage
of events of particular interest and resonance
in their respective countries. In Belgium, The
Jonathan Jacob Case is the court proceedings
concerning a young man, who had been
arrested under the influence of drugs, to
then die in unclear circumstances while in
the custody of the local police. This webdocumentary by VRT (Belgium) reviews the
events that led to the trial, which is still ongoing.
Phillip Smith flight and return (RNZ, New
Zealand) is the story of the daring escape of
a convict, found guilty of murder and child
abuse, which triggered a manhunt on a global
scale, resulting in his arrest in Brazil, but also
in a heated national debate about security
measures. Liliane, quite simply (Radio France,
France) is an interactive portrait of Liliane
Bettencourt, presented in the form of a comic
strip. The project, a collaboration between a
news editor and a designer, tells the story of the
richest person in France, caught up in the heart
of a family, political and judicial scandal. The
website has been online since the beginning
of the trial. Finally, two projects are dedicated
to exploring the hidden world of prisons and
the reintegration of ex-prisoners into society.
The man with the Harpoon is a web spin-off
from the homonym documentary series by RTBF
(Belgium): a serious game that puts the visitor in
Alan’s shoes – at 45, sentenced to 14 years for
attempted murder, currently released on parole,
struggling with a problematic reintegration
while attempting at the same time to help
what remains of his family, and also regain
his dignity. Unit 9 – The Webdocumentary
showcases interviews with 13 women prisoners
and ex-prisoners. This project by CBC / SRC
(Canada) is an rare example of a documentary
spin-off adapted from a fiction TV series set in
a women’s prison. For fans of the TV series, the
web-documentary adds depth to the fictional
universe they already know well, detailing
true data and facts about women in prison.
But the spin-off can also be followed by a
wider audience, as proven by its extraordinary
success (which has in turn generated a new TV
version of the web-documentary).
Themes:
History
A few projects in competition deal with
historical subjects, especially issues of recent
and contemporary history.
The centenary of the First World War inspired
the making of some significant products. The
trans-media coverage of the celebrations by
RTÉ (Ireland), World War 1, 100 Years, is an
example of how a Public Service Broadcaster
may put itself at the heart of the national debate
about the legacy of the Great War and the
impact it left on Irish society. Anzac 2015
Coverage by RNZ (New Zealand) is focused
on how the disastrous Gallipoli campaign
impacted the Army and the people of both
Australia and New Zealand - an opportunity
to remember how the War left deep scars also
far off from the European front. The Notebook
of Songs by Radio France (France) is a
collection of war songs never before recorded,
sung by the soldiers at the front or popular
at the time among civilians in the rear, that
French radio has discovered and published
through a philological study; a new recording
and website hosting also a large amount of
documentary material. Footballers United,
web docu-fiction by BBC (United Kingdom),
tackles the subject from a different angle: it is
the story of a team of famous Scottish players
who left their promising careers to fight at the
front – a portrait of the Edinburgh society as
the War broke out, spurred by the need to
support the British in a conflict they nevertheless
at the same time felt extraneous. Among the
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proposals not directly related to the First World
War is the ARD (Germany) portfolio which
this year features three projects of historical
subject. A History of South-West Germany is
a web-documentary and an interactive game
in six parts, where we can explore several
different moments in German history since the
Middle Ages, reviving them from the point of
view of a hypothetical character of that period.
The Oktoberfest Attack is a web-documentary
collecting archival documents, records and
evidence from prosecution, about the terrorist
attack of 1980, responsibility for which has yet
to be fully clarified. The online reportage offers
the opportunity to explore one of the darkest
moments in recent German history, and possibly
contribute to a journalistic investigation that
has been in progress for more than 30 years.
Finally, The Wall is a trans-media project to
celebrate the 25th anniversary of the fall of the
Berlin Wall, which consists of a TV show and
an interactive web-documentary. The Japanese
Family by NHK (Japan) also presents an indepth study into the recent history of a country,
on the occasion of the anniversary of the end
of World War II. Through photos and diaries,
the project summarises the story of a single
family over the last 70 years. As generations
pass, we witness the evolution of Japanese
society, while recalling the greatest moments
in the history of the country. A similar project
is HERO.CZ: taking inspiration from the 70th
anniversary of the Second World War, but also
the 600th anniversary of the death at the stake
of religious reformer Jan Hus. This project by
CZCR (Czech Republic) questions the myth of
“national heroes”, and how exemplary figures
shape the character of a nation. Another project
focusing on the collective memory of a country,
Voices from the Past is a mobile app designed
by PR (Poland) on the occasion of the 90th
anniversary of its founding. The app provides
an extensive archive from the Polish radio audio
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recordings and allows, thanks to geolocation,
to listen to the relevant testimonies depending
on the places you are visiting, along different
routes you may choose from. Finally, the
collective memory of a nation, but this time set
in the recent past, also provides the basis for the
aforementioned web-documentary Retrospect:
War, Family, Afghanistan by ABC (Australia).
Themes:
Science and Popular Science
Three projects address issues of scientific
interest with a popular approach and original
results. Life on Us is the latest product from
the rich portfolio of Arte France (France)
scientific documentaries: stemming from the
television documentary of the same name,
it is presented as a futuristic travel agency
offering trips inside the human body. The
approach to science of Life on Venus (SRG
SSR, Switzerland) is humorous, demystifying
and character-driven, typical of a web-series.
In each episode, the main character, a physics
student, faces a different scientific theme, and
explains it in simple terms, taking inspiration
from her everyday life. Finally, Bistro in Vitro
by Submarine Channel (The Netherlands) is
a virtual restaurant where we can order only
100% artificial foods that do not yet exist, but
that science will soon make possible thanks to
advances in laboratory techniques. Scientists,
experts and chefs offer us glimpses from the
future, inviting us to reflect on the ethical
implications.
Themes:
Continuity of Culture
The Web has its own way of presenting cultural
issues (and also the so-called high culture) in a
diffuse, liquid form that highlights the continuity
with space and time which we live in, with our
consumption patterns, with different formats,
content, media: stories that are also places,
trips that are also books, comics to be explored
like games, literary labyrinths made of images
and sounds. Cultures without Transition is a
radio / web documentary by Radio France
(France) that explores a few symbolic places
in French culture, from the Marseille’s Alcazar,
scene of performances by Charles Trenet to the
Piscine Molitor dear to Boris Vian, showing their
changes and the deep impact they have left on
the collective memory. Radio France (France)
also presents Continuidad, a reinterpretation
of the classic Cortázar Continuidad de los
Parques, whose cyclic and non-linear structure
is often regarded as a model of web storytelling before its time. In this version, a musical
score, also cyclical and potentially infinite,
accompanies the reading, enriched with
images, drawings and an innovative user
interface. France Télévisions (France) presents
another classic “reinvented” for the Web: in
Corto Maltese: Secrets of Venice, once again
we are fascinated by the magic of Hugo Pratt’s
Venice. But this time the web transforms the
comic book masterpiece into a peculiar form
of interactive game, where exploration and
surprise from unexpected discovery become a
first-hand experience. Another reinterpretation
of a classic is Dreaming along the TransSiberian by SRG SSR (Switzerland): a trip from
Moscow to Ulan Bator enjoying the company of
interviews, musical themes, background sounds,
images and readings, inspired by the centenary
of Blaise Cendrars’ La Prose du Transsibérien.
Finally, another famous centenary is celebrated
by Dylan Thomas Digital Season: a gigantic
collection of digitized archive material from the
BBC (United Kingdom) tracking the life and work
of Dylan Thomas, whose close collaboration
with the English Public Radio made him
undoubtedly one of the first genuinely crossmedia literary geniuses.
Themes:
Music
This year, two projects deal with musical
themes, and they are both of exceptional scope
and ambition. The first is the aforementioned
coverage of the Eurovision Song Contest,
presented by ORF (Austria) just a few days after
the closing of the final. The second is Radio 2
Top 2000 (NPO, The Netherlands), a ranking
of 2,000 musical songs voted by the public and
transmitted on the second channel of the Dutch
radio during the Christmas holidays. Online
participation is wide-ranging: in addition to the
traditional tools of interaction, the live broadcast
from the Top 2000 Café Hilversum can also be
followed by means of a virtual tour via Oculus
Rift. The Top 2000 reaches more than 70% of
the Dutch public, and has become a “transmedia Christmas tradition”.
SPECIAL PRIZE
EXPO MILANO 2015
Reserved for Prix Italia members
Hunger, Globalisation and Environmental
Sustainability
T
he power exercised by banks and
finance over natural resources (Banking
Nature – Arte France, France). Individual
and collective initiatives are gathering
momentum around the world to face and cope
with the continual acceleration of our lifestyles
(The Invisible (R)evolutions – Arte France,
France). The effective need for genetically
modified crops and their impact on the
environment (The Propaganda War Over GM
Crops – ARD, Germany). The problems of
sustainable fishing for tuna and the overfishing
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of Dorado (Malta: Tuna or Dorado – PBS,
Malta). Globalisation, desertification and
Land Grab, GMO: the many faces of hunger
(Hunger! – ZDF, Germany).
Food in all its Sauces
In a cookery school to “extract” every concept
of physics hidden within, from the most complex
and profound to those that are more simple
and intuitive (The Universe is a Free Meal! –
RAI, Italy). The old salt route that strengthened
the bond uniting man and the earth’s produce
and, above all, a meeting between different
people and cultures (On the Ancient Salt
Route – SMRTV, Republic of San Marino). Two
old friends travel across Spain to investigate
gastronomy and scenery, to enjoy the diversity
founded firmly on Spain’s common roots (A
Country Worth Eating – RTVE, Spain). Moving
through southern Europe to get to know food
and the different use that is made of it from one
Mediterranean country to the next (Food Planet
– RTVE, Spain).
The Importance of Water
Water scarcity threatens billions of people
worldwide, in developing countries and as
well in rich nations (Thirst! – ZDF, Germany).
The Mediterranean: discovering how our
food cycle is being hit by fish arriving from
one of the most polluted seas in the world
(Presa diretta – Save the Sea – RAI, Italy).
With the efficient use of water in Malta a real
problem, this docu-mag presents the experience
and the fight of a couple of farmers and the
technologies for water sustainability to reduce
water consumption and improve rationalization
(Watering an Island – PBS, Malta). Children,
between the age of 8 to 12, are made aware of
problems afflicting our environment, such as the
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plastic soups in the oceans, as well as possible
ways to avert ecological disaster (Zapp Your
Planet – NPO, The Netherlands).
GOLDEN AWARD
FOR NEW RADIO FORMATS
Competition open to every new player on the
digital scene
The Sound, the Voice
A
bizarre trip inside the brain of Producer
Tim Hinman, as he does his best to follow
the pathways of cognition to the source
– only to be confronted with a stranger
and stranger inner universe (In One Ear
and Out the Other – ABC, Australia). Radio
Producer and Sound Lover Belinda Lopez, who
stumbled on a YouTube on ASMR Autonomous
Sensory Meridian Response) interviews a
number of top international video makers,
ASMR experts (Inaudible Me – Belinda Lopez,
Australia). Do Automated Voices Have a Soul?
Nicolas Guadagno dreams up a world where
automated voices go off the rails, revolt and
express themselves (Total Vocal – Arte France,
Francia). Recorded in several locations in
Belgrade and edited in a studio in Belgrade.
The idea was to analyse recorded speech from
a musical angle, convert it to a series of musical
notes, and then use it as a starting point for a
music composition (Play It with Your Voice –
SBC/RTS, Serbia).
Sound Walks
The main topic is mirrored in the dramatization
and the dramatis personae: instead of a
presenter there is an audio guide, operated by
a female character, who navigates through an
array of audio files. On the Ö1 website users
can navigate through an audio gallery showing
the custodians in front of their choice painting.
(Pictures of an Exhibition – ORF, Austria). A
sonic immersion in the Brussels district of St.
Gilles during a soundwalk (Play Babel – Anna
Raimondo, Belgium). We travel with Susanna
Sommer to a little fishing village in Thailand, all
alone – except for a suitcase packed with voices
(The Voyage into the Unknown – DR, Denmark).
This sound documentary was recorded around
the 26th North Parallel considered a “Red
Zone” by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
because of problems linked to narcotrafficking
to be then edited, sculpted, mixed in Paris
(Silent Zone – Amandine Casadamont and
Angelique Tibau, France). Recorded in June,
2013 in Kinshasa, this audio documentary
opens its microphone and speaks with people
in the working-class districts of the capital of the
Democratic Republic of the Congo (My Village
is Called Kinshasa – La Fabrique Documentaire,
France). The three parts of the trilogy
“Radiotelegraph”, “Night Fall”, and” Relay”
explore landscapes experienced in solitude and
isolation, and the descent into darkness for the
long northern winter night, featuring the village
of Seyðisfjörður, East Iceland (Trilogy for Night
and Radio: Radiotelegraph, Night Fall, Relay
Anna Friz and Konrad Korabiewski, Canada,
Denmark, Iceland). An innovative sound portrait
of Limerick, Ireland, taking the listener over
12 themed episodes on an aural adventure
(Limerick 2014: As It Lives & Breathes - Episode
1 Summer – Grey Heron Media, Ireland).
Culture, Theatre
A journey through the soundscape of a
theatrical company in rehearsal: the word,
gesture, music, dance, vocalisation, the
sound of an idea taking form (Achilles and
the Tortoise – Gianluca Stazi, Italy). In 1974
Dieter Roth wrote a play which got by on
176 pages with the use of a single word:
“Mumble”. Pure Minimalism. Performance Artist
Grace Yoon uses the remains of meaningless
language and evolves a new universe from
seven letters (“Mumbling” Adapted from the
Play “Murmel, Murmel” by Dieter Roth – Grace
Yoon, Germany). Orlando Furioso, betrayed
but spirited, resolves to take action that risks
provoking the wrath of environmentalists, but
they probably would not have the courage to
face such a raving lunatic (Lunatics in Literature
– Giovanni Morandini, Italy). A multimedia
format combining the live performing arts with
the audio documentary for radio broadcasting.
A theatre jam session. 7 rules given and no
collective rehearsals (Absolutely Live – Roberta
Nicolai, Italy). A radio art diptych depicting the
brutalisation of war. The first part is a Holocaust
commemoration, whilst the second is a portrait
of the intense conflict in Gaza (The Savage
Bull – RTÉ, Ireland). This poetic multimedia
play is based on the dialogues spoken by
characters in Strniša’s play The Unicorn, a
work mirroring the author’s view of two worlds:
the female main character is presented as
innocence and arrogance, while the male
takes his place in the world as a knight, old
and a merrymaker (It Happened in a City That
Didn’t Exist – RTVSLO, Slovenia). In 1776,
America is at war with England and George
Washington’s army has taken back Boston.
But in the middle of this terrifying time, Abigail
Adams, the future first lady of the United States,
makes a fateful decision to travel to Boston and
use a controversial new scientific technique to
protect her five children against a threat more
dangerous than an army of English Redcoats
(No Inoculation Without Representation – Luke
Quinton, USA).
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Current Affairs, News, Interviews
An interactive MNM project aimed at helping
young, unemployed people find a job (The
Biggest Employment Agency in the World – VRT,
Belgium). A series of short radio documentaries
in a campaign combatting loneliness. This series
offers ten different perspectives on loneliness
and a voice to those people not usually heard
in society (The Silent Ones – Radiomedia
RY, Finland). In 2001, the biggest cybercrime ever experienced by Israel reached the
courts. The indictment included hacking, theft,
impersonating federal employees, criminal
conspiracy (The Badir Brothers – Sipur Israeli
and Adam Bizansky, Israel). Mocku tells stories
of ordinary people who once in a lifetime did
something worth being told. Challenges, wars,
loves, anecdotes, adventures. Mocku follows
one only rule: not all the stories that are told
are true – Laura Faggin and Paolo Corleoni,
Italy). A new web newspaper, daily reviewing
world news and edited by journalists Barbara
Schiavulli and Alessia Cerantola. The style is
simple and immediate, conceived as a way
to keep track of the flux of the world events
(20 November 2014 – News – Radio Bullets,
Italy). The only Italian radio programme ever
recorded live with a smartphone. Fiorello
records his programme in a mysterious bar in
the North of Rome, at dawn, along with friends,
ordinary people plus a special guest every
day (Fiorello at Radio Fuori Programma – RAI,
Italy). More than 16 years ago, Joe Richman of
Radio Diaries gave a group of young people
tape recorders to report on their own lives for
the NPR series, Teenage Diaries. In Teenage
Diaries Revisited, some of those diarists return
to chronicle their grown-up lives in a onehour special. A great deal has happened in
16 years (Teenage Diaries Revisited – Radio
Diaries, USA). A serial radio show and podcast
with an interleaved narrative. Scenes with
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different correspondents fade in and out: young
adults living in the city of San Francisco (Meet
Sonic SF – Stacy Bond and Audioluxe, USA).
A comedy programme about how Sweden
actually feels. Something completely original,
with a tough new attitude (Thor radio – Sveriges
Radio P3, Sweden). Every Thursday, between
7 pm – 9 pm through DERP, 4 famous Turkish
radio presenters meet listeners both live and
simultaneously from stations based in Ankara,
Istanbul and Izmir as if they were broadcast
in the very same studio (The “Most” Radio
Programme of the World – TRT FM, Turkey).
Experimenting, Trans-Media
How does one’s sense of reality fail when falling
in love? Why do we sometimes find ourselves
lost in dreams of the future, with someone we’ve
met once or twice? An interesting documentary
experiment (Movies in Your Head – Radiotopia’s
The Heart, Canada). An interactive Radiogioco
in 3D-Audio. A mystery-thriller in two versions:
as a radio play and as a game app for mobile
devices (39 – Audio Game in 3D Sound –
ARD, Germany). a two-part trans-media project
for radio and mobile devices: Blowback/
The Assignment and Blowback/The Search
(Blowback – HTW Berlin, Germany). An attempt
to present a road accident off Vestvejen (The
West Road) in Denmark as a sound experience
(The West Road – Maria Dønvang, Denmark).
Margaux Chrétien is the captain of the French
synchronized swimming team. Pain is her daily
life; moving beyond pain is her specialty. A
format composed of one part radiophonic and
another visual dedicated to the fascinating
photographs of the athlete (I Help My Body
Out – Elsa Fayner, France). The sound of 75
mm cannon shells, that of 58 mm mortar shells,
the whistling of bullets from Lebel rifles – what
did the soldiers actually hear, during the First
World War? An experiment consisting of
sounds and original stereoscopic images (The
Trench – Radio France, France). Take singer and
storyteller Jarvis Cocker, add radio documentary
producers, and a full symphony orchestra –
and the result is a unique experiment in telling
stories about music and the night, mixing prerecorded audio with live song and symphonic
scores (Wireless Nights: BBC Philharmonic
Presents ... – BBC, United Kingdom). This is a
site-specific piece of live radio-art created in
the remote Irish rural community of Kilfinane.
The aesthetic purpose is to create a palpable
psychological object through a distinctive and
idiosyncratic radiophonic event (Fifth Sketch for
Ascent and Descent – Resonance FM, United
Kingdom). Short experimental radiophonic
format based on the reasonable assumption
that Beethoven was completely deaf, after years
of suffering from Tinnitus (condition causing
you to hear ringing or roaring sounds that
only you can hear) when composing his 9th
Symphony (Beethoven’s Tinnitus – Snezana Ristic
and Radonja Leposavic, Serbia). Eintagsliebe,
a German word meaning “one-day’s love”
or, a “fling”. It can be analogous to the word
mayfly, eintagsfliege. The mayfly sneaks in
through an open window and lives her mayfly
life to the fullest - perhaps even finding her
true mayfly love. Before she knows it, death
has overtaken her (The Hurricane – Mitra
Kaboli, USA). An experimental audio narrative
about a day in the life of a tarot hustler that
takes an unexpected turn of events (Sacred
Operator – Karen Robins, USA, Canada). An
interactive audio tour that tells the true story of
eight unsolved murders from the year 1885.
Moving at their own pace and assisted by
GPS-triggered narration, participants are led
on an expedition that engages all the senses
(The Year that Broke Austin – Radiolab, USA).
At Picnic Radio original founder members of
Jealousy Party, Roberta WJM Andreucci and
Mat Pogo retraced their almost twenty year
musical project. After selecting material from
an archive of published and unreleased studio
and live tracks, they decided the best way to tell
their own story was to perform it live instead of
giving it a chronological or archival slant (The
Sound of Punca – Radio Picnic, Switzerland).
Environment
Talks, interviews and statements focusing
on Macedonia’s first food cooperative in an
informal group of people and households
getting their organic products straight from
producers (Good Soil, – Kanali03, Macedonia).
24 hours a day, Phaune Radio invites you to
explore animality and its worlds of sounds,
to travel ever closer to wild and imaginary
biotopes (Polyphaune #6: Courtship Display –
Phaune Radio, France). Part 2 of a three-part
series which looks at the fascinating history and
natural history of the North Bull Island, home
to over 1100 species of organisms including
plants, insects, birds and mammals (An Irish
Sanctuary – Part 2 – Near FM, Ireland). A radio
and podcast mini-series about the changes
facing the waterfront: the Pirate, Lu Olkowski
meets one man who embodies the spirit of the
fast-fading waterfront – Lu Olkowski, USA).
The Power of Stories
The journey of Yulu and two Arkurra, Giant
Rainbow Serpents, as they brought the land into
being for the Adnyamathanhas, an indegeneous
Australian people (Yulu’s Coal – Liz Thompson,
Australia). A sentimental, saccharine radio
drama infested with a poetic, yet trashy virus
called the Process, intermingling everything
and wreaking havoc in the highly conventional
maudlin universe of Pamela and John (Pamela
– ACSR, Belgium). To give life is like accepting
death, a symbolical death. For Katia, this
death however turned out to be very real. A
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documentary about birth and loss…intimate,
delicate and fragile as the thread of life itself
(Katia – Magali Schuermans, Belgium). In this
special Valentine’s Day episode of WireTap, a
woman jumps through hoops to find romance
in a new video game (WireTap – The Dating
Game – CBC/SRC, Canada). The story of a
horologist living in Halifax, Nova Scotia who
is the first person to tell you that time doesn’t
exist (Dr. Clock – Veronica Simmonds, Canada).
The surprising story of Amanda who one day
discovers the true identity of the man she has
fallen in love with and exactly who his friends
and family really are (In a Relationship with …
– Third Ear, Denmark). In “Genialos!” Professor
Holger Bech Nielsen meets the uncrowned king
of Denmark’s reality TV, Sidney Lee, who holds
the unofficial Danish record for reality show
appearances. It’s nothing less than the sound of
two of the most peculiar particles in the universe
colliding! (Genialos! – The Year in Review,
2014 – Radio24SYV, Denmark). This is the story
of a box. A leather box that is over eighty years
old. It contains over fifty 78 rpm recordings of
classical music and opera hits of the day. This
piece is about rekindling lost, and perhaps
forgotten, sounds (A Box of 78s – Dinah Bird,
France). A daily radio soap opera exploring
10 inner dramas from 5 Irish women and 5
Irish men. Each episode features one character
from a small town visiting a young man in a
coma (Coma – Maccana Teoranta, Ireland). The
story of Enid and her incredible love for her
son Angkor, who is born with Down’s syndrome
(Love Syndrome – Israel Story. Mishi Harman,
Israel). Michael and Leah have been together
for 37 years, living in Moshav Mevo Modi’in,
which has a population of just 252. The couple
reflect back on their time together and also
take a look forward at the uncertainties lying
ahead in the future (Michael & Leah – Benny
Becker, Israel). The portrait of 100 year old
Beekeeper Wincenty Brycko is a simple story,
42
about his simple love for people, nature and
God (Childhood Whispers – Fundacja Glos
Ewangelii, Poland). The man on his way to
welcome his first grandchild, without the wife
who longed for just this moment; a man with
a diamond ring in his pocket; the veteran with
the war wounds that won’t heal and can’t be
seen (Where Are You Going? – Loftus Media,
United Kingdom). In 1977, a mild-mannered
aeronautical engineer sideswiped a parked
car in Compton, California. What happened
next would torment him for the rest of his life
(I’m about to Save Your Life – Criminal. A
podcast, USA). As a child, Charles Farrell was a
prodigious piano player living in a middle-class
household. In this story, Farrell reflects on his
life, the ethics of boxing, playing the piano and
whether or not a hustler can ever truly change
(Sesquipedalian – Love + Radio and Everything
is, USA). While working at night in the wilds of
the Marin Headlands, Baker Eduardo Morell
witnesses the struggle between life and death.
This struggle plays out all around us all the
time, in ways both large and small (What the
Baker Saw – Vanessa Lowe, USA). In a future
dominated by AI’s, an invisible rogue planet
on a perfect collision course with Earth catches
everyone by surprise (Brad Lansky and the
Rogue Era – Protophonic, South Africa).
GOLDEN AWARD
FOR INTERNATIONAL TV
COPRODUCTIONS
History and Culture
A
s peace is declared after the American
Revolution, slavers go to New York in
search of runaway slaves (The Book
of Negroes – CBC/SRC, Canada). The
life story of a great European: Václav Havel
(Václav Havel- Living in Freedom – CTV, Czech
Republic). A reconstruction of the day when
Snowden bid to elude capture (Snowden’s
Great Escape – DR, Denmark). Seventy years
after the liberation of Auschwitz, our eight-part
film about the annihilation of Europe’s Jews sets
out to explore a story dating back to before
the start of the 20th century (Annihilation The Destruction of Europe’s Jews ‘The End of
Illusions’ (ep 1/8), ‘The Survivors’ (ep 6/8) –
France 2, France). 100 years after its outbreak,
this series lets viewers experience WWI solely
through the eyes of those who lived through it
(Diaries of the Great War-The Beginning – ARD,
Germany). Tribute to Friedrich Dürrenmatt, the
man, writer and painter (Friedrich Dürrenmatt
– In Labyrinth – SRG SSR, Switzerland). A multicomponent public television project building a
comprehensive video resource on the Complete
Plays of William Shakespeare – for television,
online and educational use (Shakespeare
Uncovered: Series 2 – CPB/PBS, USA).
feuding families: their love (Romeo and Juliet
– Mediaset/RTI, Italy). The Beast, Prince Leon,
scarred by hatred and fear is reborn thanks
to the purity and courage of Bella Dubois (The
Beauty and the Beast – RAI, Italy).
Environment
Nowadays, the effective use of water in Malta
is a real problem. The struggle of a couple of
farmers for water sustainability, reduce water
consumption and improve rationalization
(Watering an Island – PBS, Malta). A world
where millions of tons of electronic waste
is currently destroying the environment and
jeopardising the lives of thousands of people in
Africa and Asia (The E-waste Tragedy – RTVE,
Spain).
Thriller
What first appears to be a series of brutal
murders at the hands of a single perpetrator,
soon turns out to be a much larger, more
complex case (The Team – ZDF, Germany).
Love
Romeo and Juliet’s love find something
worth fighting for, something setting them
apart from the others and in particular their
(By Ilia Amatuzio and Carla Teofani,
with Marta L’Abbate and Riccardo Polignieri.
Translation by Michael Barranger).
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TV RADIOCORRIERE
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