Lesson of Belorussian has also been awarded on the Europe´s most important documentary film festival IDFA 2007 with the price DOC U! In the moment, Miroslav Dembinski is working on another film depicting Belorussian reality - on the documentary "Music Partisans". The film follows Belorussian tour of four rock groups that have met in Poland. During one week of common playing and nomadizing 20 musicians face the extraordinary probe into Belorussian reality. Guerrilla of music is film, which deals with important political issues through the music.
In 2005, Miroslav Dembinski presented Music Partisans on the East European Forum.
PRESS RELEASE - One World 2007:
Prize-giving ceremony of the One World 2007 Film Festival
On Thursday 8 March at 7 p.m. the prize-giving ceremony will be held of this year’s One World Film Festival in Lucerna Cinema.
The Best Film Award was selected by members of the main jury: the renowned Brazilian director at present working in Holland, Maria Ramos; the Austrian documentary filmmaker Angelika Schuster, director of Operation Spring shown at this year’s One World; the Philippine director and winner of innumerable awards Nick Deocampo; one of the most important Czech documentary filmmakers Miroslav Janek, whose film Vierka received the official commendation of the main jury at last year’s One World, and the Germany director Jens Schanze,who won the award for Best Director last year for his film Winter’s Children – The Silent Generation.
A prize will be awarded to the German film Losers and Winners by the directors Ulrike Franke and Michael Loeken on the current topic of the day, globalisation. “We have chosen a film which addresses the urgent issue of globalization. It is an allegory of modern-day world where geo-politics is defined by the shift of capital and labour migration. In a subtle observational style the filmmakers succeeded in depicting two different worlds, each with its own labour ethics and mechanisms of exploitation,” the main jury said, explaining its decision.
The members of the main jury also awarded the Best Director Award. The jury eventually decided to award the award to the film Cemetery Club. “The director has shot an exciting film in which we can laugh along with the aging men and women despite the sadness of the stories being told. The film’s heroes, who are portrayed with all their problems and weakness, ensure that activity and energy will help them live the rest of their lives with dignity,” the jury wrote in its statement.
The members of the main jury also decided to give special mention to the Danish film by the director Eva Mulvad entitled Enemies of Happiness. The jury justified its decision thus: “An admirable film about a courageous woman who doesn’t give up the fight for her convictions in a male-dominated, war-stricken country.”
The Václav Havel Special Award for the film which contributes to the protection of human rights in a special way is every year awarded by a special jury under the honorary chairmanship of Václav Havel. This year the prize was won by the film A Lesson of Belorussian. In the film, the Polish director Miroslaw Dembinski combines interviews with young people regarding the current situation in Belarus and their ideas of the future with suggestive shots from the course of last year’s presidential election campaign.
In the competition category short forms, which, as well as documentaries, includes experimental and animated films on the topic of human rights lasting up to 35 minutes, the Mayor of Prague’s Best Short Film Award will be awarded by a jury comprising, as is traditional, directors or dramaturges of prestigious international documentary festivals. This year this meant Cara Mertes (Documentary Fund Sundance, USA), Adriek van Nieuwenhuyzen (IDFA – International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam, Holland), Ana Isabel Santos Strindberg (Documentary Film Festival Lisbon, Portugal), Amir Labaki (It’s All True – the International Festival of Documentary Films, Brazil), and Karel Och (Karlovy Vary International Film Festival).
A prize will be awarded to the French director Jean-Gabriel Périot for his film Even If She Had Been A Criminal..., the jury majority voted to recognize this film as best documentary in recognition of its combination of originality of aesthetic vision, its powerful use of experimental film technique, and its intellectual and emotional power, which asks us to examine essentials and eternal questions of guilt and innocence, sacrifice and betrayal in a compact and unusual form using archival footage and historical events as a foundation. The film is complemented by a detailed and effective sound track that also deserves mention.
The jury offered special mention to the exceptionally skilfully shot documentary Sari’s Mother, which with respect and empathy illustrates the desperate personal drama of a mother – a victim of the invisible war in Iraq. Because of the war and its destructive effect on the Iraqi infrastructure medical care which is a matter of life or death is unavailable for Sari.
The jury also made special mention of the film Sona and Her Family. The jury appreciated an exceptional project in the sphere of short documentaries. The film intimately and authentically reveals the decision of the director to find a truthful and comprehensive picture of the life of Roma people through the life of Soni and her family.
The Rudolf Vrba Award will be awarded to the best film in the category Right to Know. The jury awarding this prize is deliberately not composed of filmmakers but of charismatic and courageous individuals who are involved in the sphere of human rights. This year’s Rudolf Vrba jury comprised the Shan activist, Hseng Noung, who escaped from Burma to Thailand; Ramón Colás, the former dissident and founder of the Movement of Independent Libraries in Cuba; Gul Rahman, project coordinator for People in Need in Afghanistan; Ina Kuley, head of the Committee for the Support of Unjustly Persecuted and wife of the top representative of the Belarus opposition, Alaksandr Milinkievič, and finally Hope Christians, head of the People in Need workshop in Namibia, which offers work to people who are directly or indirectly affected by HIV&AIDS.
The jury decided to award the prize for best documentary to the British director Paul Taylor We are Together, the hero of which is “Grandma” Zodwa, who founded the Agape Centre in South Africa, in which twenty five orphans whose parents had died of AIDS found a home. The jury especially appreciated the portrayal of the solidarity, hope and persistence displayed to attain an indefinable objective or education and the ongoing inadequacies in the threatened group confronting illness. The film sensitively draws attention to the great need of love and support, education and awareness, and reminds us that if “we are together” the value is valid for centuries on all continents which will help us drag ourselves out of desperate poverty. The member of the jury Hope Christians, who herself works with a community of people afflicted by the virus HIV&AIDS, adds: “¨Much is spoken about the HIV&AIDS pandemic and this film focuses on many aspects of it. As a jury we were most affected by the poverty, the family values, and the grief and solidarity which holds these people together. They look after the others and their constant song says that life must on and help them overcome their burdens and problems”.
The jury also decided to award a special mention to the film A Cry in the Dark, in which the Indian director Haobam Paban Kumar records the extreme brutality of the federal policy, but also a series of demonstrations in the Indian federal stat of Manipur. After one young woman was held, raped and beaten to death, the local population rose up against the terror. “The film describes the courage of people, especially students and women, fighting for their rights and for justice. These days, when India is perceived as the largest democratic state in the world, director Paban Kumar has written a shocking testimony to these facts, in order to uncover the repression of the state against its own population, something which many people want to close their eyes to in the modern world,” the Rudolf Vrba Jury writes in its statement.
The Czech Radio Award for the best use of music and sound in a documentary film will also be awarded. As always the jury will comprise employees of Czech Radio: Vlastimil Hankus, Karel Fisl and the chairman of the jury, Jiří Hraše. The prize goes to the film Scythian Suite by the renowned Russian director Alexander Gutman. The film’s hero is Nikolai Chukrov, who was born in the gulag and still lives in the zone of the former concentration camps of Stalin’s regime, regarding which the Russian government has kept quiet, even since the fall of the communist government.
The Student Jury selected the best film in the section Next Generation EU. The student prize will be awarded to a Polish film by the director Miroslaw Dembinski entitled A Lesson of Belorussian.
The viewer’s prize for best film in the category One World in Schools will go to the series of films entitled Naked.
Audience awarded Bridge over the Wadi...The winner of the Plzeňský Prazdroj Audience Award, which enjoyed the best reception from visitors to One World is the film Bridge over the Wadi of the filmmakers Barak Heymann, Tomer Heymann.The film is taking place in the Wadi region, which is located in the centre of Israel, Jews and Arabs live beside each other. After decades of violence, parents from both sides of the divide decide to establish a common bilingual school for their children from both nationalities.
The winners of Audience voting:
1. Bridge over the Wadi
2. Industrial Elegy
3. Vorga - A Path of Two Banks
4. Bloody Sunday
5. Berkat and Marso
6. Suplent
7. Buddha´s Lost Children
8. Young, Nazi and Proud
9. Lesson of a Belorussian
10. Three Comrades
For more information about One world 2007, go to www.oneworld.cz