awarded films

The Minister of Culture Award for the Best Film

My Beloved Child / Mitt elskede barn
Brit Jorunn Hundsnes / Norway / 2004 / 103 min.

The members of the Main Jury (Don Edkins – South Africa, Nikolaus Geyrhalter – Austria, Alena Müllerová – Czech Republic, Anand Patwardhan – India, and Anna Glogowski – France) chose the Minister of Culture Award for the Best Film. The Best Film of this year's One World Film Festival went to My Beloved Child by Brit Jorunn Hundsnes.

Statement of the Grand Jury

The Minister of Culture Award for the Best Film goes to My Beloved Child – a film that voices the unspoken, yet universally prevalent, tragedy of incest. This first-time filmmaker uses a surprisingly cinematic style to portray her subject with respect and dignity. The film ends shockingly, with the survivor of incest being sentenced to seven years of imprisonment. Among other things, it is the hope of the jury that this award will help focus international attention on this miscarriage of justice, and will lead to worldwide introspection.

 

The Award for Best Director

The Three Rooms of Melancholia / Melancholian Kolme Huonetta
Pirjo Honkasalo / Finland / 2004 / 106 min.

The Youngest / Bunso
Ditsi Carolino / Philippines / 2004 / 64 min.

The Award for Best Director was chosen by members of the Grand Jury (Don Edkins – South Africa, Nikolaus Geyrhalter – Austria, Alena Müllerová – Czech Republic, Anand Patwardhan – India, and Anna Glogowski – France). Two directors were honored: Pirjo Honkasalo for the film Three Rooms of Melancholia and Ditsi Carolino for the film The Youngest.

Statement of the Grand Jury

With the Best Director Award, the jury wishes to honor two very different styles of documentary filmmaking, both addressing the situation of children caught up in conflict and inhumanity.

In The Youngest, the filmmaker achieves empathy and closeness to her characters who are children held in atrocious conditions in a Manila jail. Filmed from not above or below their level, humor and despair intermingle as the children are allowed to speak for themselves as equals. In Three Rooms of Melancholia the director presents a carefully constructed film. Children caught up in the machinery of war are a reminder of the tragedy of Chechnya that we forget at our own peril. The audience is demanded and allowed to enter a world of yesterday and tomorrow, where children are trapped in a vicious cycle of violence.

 

Grand Jury special mention

The Source / Zdroj
Martin Mareček / Czech Republic / 2005 / 90 min.

Statement of the Grand Jury

The jury would like to give the film The Source a special mention. The film documents the resistance of local communities who are being robbed of their means of livelihood, as the world's energy resources are captured for profit. The jury felt that a tighter format would have better focused both form and content, but yet the story told is compelling and of growing relevance to the world in which we live.

 

Mayor of Prague Award

Second Class / Deuxiéme Classe
Gérard Désiré Nguele / Camerun / 2003 / 26 min.

In the Short Film Competition the Mayor of Prague Award was granted, which had been chosen by a jury consisting of directors and dramaturges from several prestigious international documentary film festivals (Claas Danielsen – Germany, Jukka-Pekka Laakso – Finland, Tina Lokk – Estonia, Tine Fischer – Denmark and Illana Tsur – Israel) The Mayor of Prague Award was given to Gérard Désiré Nguele for the film Second Class. In addition to the main prize, the jury also gave honorable mention to the film Museum Piece by John Smith.

Statement of Mayor of Prague Jury

Second Class gives personal and general insight into the deteriorating state of a train voyage in Africa. With skillfully selected images, the film presents an interesting narrative from a small corner of Africa that illustrates a connection between the colonial past and the present state of affairs.

 

Mayor of Prague Jury special mention

Museum Piece
John Smith / UK, Germany / 2004 / 12 min.

Statement of Mayor of Prague Jury

In addition to the main prize, the jury also felt strongly about one other film in this category and decided to award honorable mentions Museum Piece by John Smith. Museum Piece is a seemingly simple but very precise film by and about John Smith. The film speaks in a unique way about the complexities of human existence in a world where we, the fortunate ones, try but cannot escape the world and the guilt created by our actions.

 

The Václav Havel Special Award for the film with the most significant contribution to human rights awareness

The Peacekeepers / The Peacekeepers
Paul Cowan / Canada / 2004 / 90 min

During the opening ceremony of the seventh year of the One World Festival, the Special Award for the film which has in an exceptional way contributed to the protection of human rights was awarded. The jury under the honorable chairmanship of Václav Havel confered this award to the Canadian film by director Paul Cowan The Peacekeepers.

Statement of the Václav Havel Jury

The jury of Václav Havel consisting of Helena Dluhošová, Šimon Pánek and Pavel Koutecký were captivated by its complex view of the activities of the UN and its peacekeeping units in the Congo, which despite the threat of an ethnic massacre the world paid only minimal attention to it because of the war in Iraq.

 

Rudolf Vrba Award

Death in Gaza
James Miller / UK / 2004 / 79 min.

Rudolf Vrba Award is received by the best film in the category Right-to-Know. This award is granted by a jury composed not of filmmakers but of people whose fates represent today's human rights and social problems. The members of the Rudolf Vrba Jury - Ales Bialacki, Gheorghe Briceag, Mirvari Gehramanli, Hanna Khodas and Jarmila Kuchárová - gave the Rudolf Vrba Award to the film Death in Gaza by James Miller.

Statement of Rudolf Vrba Jury

The jury has awarded the Rudolf Vrba Award for the best film in the Right-to-Know category to the film Death in Gaza by James Miller. While making this decision, the jury did not try to judge right or wrong, assign responsibility or identify the guilty parties in the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At the heart of the jury's choice is the film's portrayal of children who have unwillingly become a part of this terrible conflict and robbed of any chance to have a happy childhood. Some of these children were even killed. The film spoke to the jury not only through the portrayal of tragic emotions, but also through its dynamic story, through the director's professional approach and most importantly - through its humanity. James Miller, the film's director, paid the ultimate price for this film and lost his life while making it. This fact also weighed heavily in the jury's decision.

 

Rudolf Vrba Jury honorable mentiones

White Ravens - Nightmare in Chechnya / Weisse Raben - Alptraum Tschetschenien
Johann Feindt, Tamara Trampe / Germany / 2005 / 92 min.

Zabte je všechny!Rwanda: History of a Genocide / Tuez-Les Tous!
Raphaël Glucksmann, David Hazan, Pierre Mezerette / France / 2004 / 100 min.

In addition to the main prize, the jury also felt strongly about two other films in this category and decided to award two honorable mentions: The first honorable mention was given to Johann Feindt and Tamara Trampe for the film White Ravens - Nightmare in Chechnya. The second honorable mention was given to the film Rwanda: History of a Genocide by Raphaël Glucksmann, David Hazan and Pierre Mezerette.

Statement of Rudolf Vrba Jury

The first honorable mention has been given to Johann Feindt and Tamara Trampe for the film White Ravens - Nightmare in Chechnya. The film describes the way war influences people's destinies, no matter which side of the conflict they fight on. The war in Chechnya is denounced by mothers of fighting children and by the representatives of non-governmental organizations trying to assist the victims of the conflict.
The second honorable mention has been given to the film Rwanda: History of a Genocide by Raphaël Glucksmann, David Hazan and Pierre Mezerette. The Rwandan genocide is shocking in its scale, cruelty and brutality. The world did not act quick enough to stop the genocide in Rwanda, and this film appeals for humankind to once and for all learn the lessons of this appalling mistake.

 

Czech Radio Award

Odessa Odessa... / Odessa Odessa...
Michale Boganim / Israel, France / 2004 / 96 min.

This was followed by the presentation of the Czech Radio Award for the creative use of music and sound in a documentary film, which has been traditionally decided by a jury consisting of employees of Czech Radio. This year the film Odessa Odessa by Michale Botanik was awarded.

Statement of Czech Radio Jury

The film Odessa Odessa is a moving report of life in a Jewish community living in a coastal city in southern Ukraine. The film uses all possible tools of an art film to portray three different environments in which the Jewish subjects of the film are characterized, with sound design playing a vital role. The director uses a broad variety of sounds, from the authentic recorded on the spot, to stylized and adjusted sounds used to create the film's score. The film's music functions on the principle of contrast – melancholy, polished music stands in opposition to the chaotic and inhospitable sounds of the environment surrounding the sad central characters. At times the music is ironic, stressing the undertones of sadness that connect the destinies of everything in the film - no matter if found in Ukrainian Odessa, in New York's Little Odessa, or in Israel. The film's different languages mix Yiddish, English and Russian and are used with a great sensitivity for the different emotions the various languages connote. The film is a masterful piece of filmmaking, and its excellent use of sound is a key part of the film's success.

 

The Plzenský Prazdroj Audience Award

The Source / Zdroj
Martin Marecek / Czech Republic / 2005 / 90 min.

The Plzenský Prazdroj Audience Award for the film which met with the most positive response among the visitors to One World was presented by Michal Kacena, the representative of Plzenský Prazdroj, to the film The Source by the Czech director, Martin Marecek.

 

Visegrad Award

In order to raise the visibility of documentaries from the region, One World in cooperation with its partners in Poland (The Krakow Film Festival), Hungary (Hungarian Filmweek), and Slovakia (One World Bratislava) has initiated the establishment of the Visegrad Award. National juries established by each of the above mentioned festivals choosed one recently released documentary from their country (made since January 2004), and each winner was awarded 1,000 EURO. Filmmakers were obliged to use the money to translate and/or subtitle their films into English. The Visegrad Award is supported by the International Visegrad Fund.

God's Stone Quarry / Kamenolom boží
Břetislav Rychlík / Czech Republic / 2005 / 88 min.

God Stone Quarry (Kamenolom boží) by Břetislav Rychlík has been chosen out of the 25 finalists as the best Czech documentary. The winning film was chosen by a jury made up of Karel Och (the head of the jury, IFF Karlovy Vary, Program Departement), Jan Kastner (FF Finále Plzeň, Programm Director) and Přemysl Martínek (IFF Febiofest, Program Director).

Love Thy Neighbour... / Miluj bližného svojho...
Dušan Hudec / Slovakia, Israel / 2004 / 82 min.

Love Thy Neighbour (Miluj bližného svojho) by Dušan Hudec has been chosen out of the 14 finalists as the best Slovak documentary. The winning film was chosen by a jury made up of professors at VSMU in Bratislava: Marie Ferencuhova, Jelena Pastekova and the head of the jury Vaclav Macek.