|
|
French Documentary Wins Global Television Grand Prize
"Compassionate, compelling"
A French documentary, La terre des âmes errantes (The
Land of Wandering Souls) was the big winner at Monday night's
Banff Rockie Awards, picking up the $50,000 Global Television Grand
Prize, and the Banff Rockie for Best Social and Political Documentary.
La terre des âmes errantes, produced by La Sept ARTE
/ INA, documents the laying of the first fibre optic cable across
Cambodia, juxtaposing the history and lives of the workers and the
Cambodian people, with the arrival of an "information superhighway"
among people who struggle for the bare necessities of life.
Jury President Micheline Lanctôt called it "a compassionate
and compelling story of Cambodian peasants digging trenches to lay
an optical fibre cable. This beautifully understated work chronicles
without pathos the wretched destitution of the workers who, as they
dig to feed their families, also dig through layers of Cambodia's
history."
The $25,000 NHK President's Prize went to the international coproduction
Wild Asia: Creatures of the Thaw, from Japan, New Zealand,
the US, and Germany. The program tells the story of the fascinating
creatures who live in northeast Asia, which is covered by ice and
snow for half the year. It was thought to be exemplary in its use
of the techniques of high definition television in to enhance the
impact of a natural history subject.
The Banff Rockie Awards were presented in 14 categories, including
the Social & Political Documentary category. The seven-member
international jury chose to recognize three additional programs
for Special Jury Prizes, which are the equivalent of the category
awards.
British programs won in four categories: Yoho Ahoy: Buzz with
Jones, from The Consortium of Gentlemen for the BBC, was named
Best Animation Program. My Parents Are Aliens: The Family Way,
from Granada Media, was Best Children's Program. The Best Comedy
Award went to Human Remains - An English Squeak (Baby Cow
for BBC). And Granada won the Best Short Drama prize for I Saw
You.
American producers and broadcasters took home four awards, two
for documentaries and two for dramas. Greener Grass - Cuba, Baseball
and the United States, from Thirteen-WNET/Bright Pictures Inc.
and Mosaic Films, won the Banff Rockie for Best Sports Program,
and the US-France coproduction Napoléon was named
Best History and Biography Program. The Home Box Office phenomenon
The Sopranos won its second consecutive Banff Rockie Award
for Best Continuing Series, and the unusual television movie, Bash
- Latterday Plays, from Steven Pevner Inc., picked up a Special
Jury Award.
Australian productions won two Banff Rockie Awards in two of the
Festival's most competitive categories. David Curl's Silhouettes
of the Desert was Best Popular Science and Natural History Program,
and Waiting at the Royal, from Apollo Films in association
with Artist Services, was Best Made-for-TV Movie.
Soldiers by Moonlight, a coproduction from Sweden and Finland,
won the Banff Rockie Award for Best Mini-Series; Sweden, Germany,
Norway, Denmark, Ireland, Belgium and Finland were all involved
in The Gold Rush, a sports documentary that was honored with
a Special Jury Award. Another multinational coproduction, Kurt
Gerron's Karussell, from Germany, the Netherlands, the Czech
Republic, and France, won the prize for Best Arts Documentary. The
Netherlands picked up another major award when Peter Greenaway's
Rosa - The Death of a Composer, a Dutch/British coproduction, was
named Best Performance Program.
Canada and Italy were also honored with Banff Rockie Awards. Cinema
Verité - Defining the Moment, from the National Film
Board, was a strong contender in the Arts Documentary category and
was awarded a Special Jury Prize. Report: State Hypocracy,
from RAI, was hailed as Best Information Program.
In addition to the Banff Rockie Awards and the NHK President's
Prize, two cash awards worth $20,000 each in development funding
were also presented. The Telefilm Canada Prize for best independent
Canadian production in English went to The Four Seasons,
a television ballet from Rhombus Media/Veronica Tennant Productions
in association with companies in the UK, the US, Japan, and Switzerland.
The highly regarded Continuing Series 2 Frères, from
Cirrus Communications / Sphère Media Plus, won the Telefilm
Canada Prize for best independent Canadian production in French.
There were 86 nominees for the 22nd Banff Rockie Awards, selected
from a record 1,030 programs entered in the international competition.
|
|
