One World’s prizewinning films are known

The competition winners at the eleventh One World festival have now been announced. Besides the main prizes, the festival juries also deemed several films worthy of special mentions, while audience votes helped in compiling the programme for Echoes of One World, which is being held on Friday, 20 March and Saturday, 21 March in the Lucerna and Světozor cinemas.

 

The main competition was won by the documentary Below Sea Level by director Gianfranco Rosi, who will be attending the closing ceremony. The Czech Minister of Culture Václav Jehlička will be presenting him with his award.

The prize for best director went to the Czech filmmaker Jana Ševčíková for her movie Gyumri. She will receive her award from Milan Fridrich, the director of the news department at Czech TV, which is the festival’s main media partner.

Grand jury also awarded two special mentions to the films The One Man Village and Because We Were Born.

 

The documentaries in the Right to Know category were competing for the Rudolf Vrba Award. The jury for this prize consisted of charismatic and courageous activists involved in the struggle for human rights. One jury member, Yoana Sánchez  from Cuba, had to cast her vote via the Internet because the state would not allow her to travel to attend the festival. Her choice was in keeping with that of her colleagues who jointly chose the film Pray the Devil to Hell. The prize will be presented by the editor-in-chief of the Lidové noviny newspaper.

The jury also gave an honourable mention to the film The Sari Soldiers.

 

The Václav Havel jury awards the Václav Havel Special Award to a film that makes an extraordinary contribution to the promotion of human rights. This year’s jury chose the documentary Burma VJ - Reporting from a Closed Country.

 

The Best Short Film prize is given to a film up to 35 minutes long. Besides documentaries, experimental and animated films with human rights themes are also eligible for the Mayor of Prague Award, which ispresented in this category. The jury for this award is traditionally composed of directors or programme coordinators from prestigious international documentary festivals. This year’s jury chose the documentary Three for the prize, which will be presented to its Croatian director Goran Devíc by the Mayor of Prague Pavel Bém.  

The jury also gave a special mention to the documentary Poison Fire.

 

The Czech Radio Award for the creative use of sound or music in a documentary went to Cocais, the Reinvented Town.

 

A student jury also chose the best film from a collection of One World films that were screened for students. This year, they chose Burma VJ - Reporting from a Closed Country.