2014 WINNERS

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE AWARDS

BEST FEATURE DOCUMENTARY

A WORLD NOT OURS
Director: Mahdi Fleifel
2012 | UK | Lebanon | Denmark | UAE | Palestine
93 min

A World Not Ours is an intimate and humorous portrait of three generations of exile in the refugee camp of Ein el-Helweh, in southern Lebanon. Based on a wealth of personal recordings, family archives, and historical footage, the film is a sensitive, and illuminating study of belonging, friendship, and family.

BEST DIRECTOR

BLOOD BROTHER
Director: Steve Hoover
2012 | USA | India
93 min

Rocky Braat went traveling through India and met a group of HIV positive children living in an orphanage – a meeting that changed everything for him. He left his life, friends, and career in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to live with the kids. In an effort to find out what compelled Rocky to give up every source of stability in his life, his best friend decided to trace Rocky’s story, following him to India and witnessing Rocky and the kids endure disease, abject poverty, and death. ‘Blood Brother’ is a story of friendship. It’s a story of a life, stripped down to its essence. Most of all, it is a story about love and endurance.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

A RIVER CHANGES COURSE
Director: Kalyanee Mam
2013 | Cambodia
83 min

A River Changes Course captures the stories of three young Cambodians struggling to maintain their traditional way of life while the modern world closes in around them. The once abundant forests and plentiful rivers have fallen victim to land grabbing, deforestation, and dwindling fish stock that rural and indigenous communities heavily depend on to survive. This stunningly photographed documentary is a powerful tribute to the struggles of all families coping with the challenges of a rapidly changing world.

BEST EDITING

GIDEON’S ARMY

Director: Dawn Porter
2013 | USA
96 min

Gideon’s Army follows three young public defenders that are part of a small group of idealistic lawyers in the Deep South challenging the assumptions that drive a criminal justice system strained to the breaking point. Nearly 50 years since the landmark Supreme Court ruling Gideon vs. Wainwright that established the right to counsel, can these courageous lawyers revolutionize the way America thinks about indigent defense and make “justice for all” a reality?

BEST SOUND EDITING

THE STATE OF INSANITY
Director: Francesco Cordio
2013 | Italy
72 min

In Italy there are 6 OPG, commonly called criminal asylums, in which about 1500 people are locked up. The first-person account of an actor, ex-inmate in one of these hospitals, is intertwined with scenes filmed, without prior notice, in these places that have been “forgotten” about even by the State.

DOCUMENTARY SHORT AWARDS

BEST SHORT DOCUMENTARY

WHEN THE TIME COMES
Director: Charles Gay
2012 | France | Kenya | USA
13 min

Shot among the Samburu semi-nomadic tribe of Kenya, “When The Time Comes” portraits its relation to the ancestral and controversial practice that is female circumcision (Female Genital Cutting) and highlights the inter-generational debate that is taking place in their communities, allowing girls and women to fight for their rights, with the support of many men.

BEST DIRECTOR

MINERITA
Director: Raul De la Fuente
2013 | Spain | Bolivia
27 min

Cerro Rico in Potosí (Bolivia) is a lawless territory, characterized by brutal violence. The miners risk their lives every day, digging for silver and zinc in crumbling galleries. The ones that survive think they’re entitled to anything and everything. And that’s when they go on the hunt… for women. Minerita is the story of three women—Lucía (40), Ivone (16) and Abigail (17)—who work as night watch women in the mines, struggling to survive in an inhuman inferno. Their only weapon is their courage… and dynamite.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

OM AMIRA
Director: Naji Esmail
2013 | Egypt
25 min

Om Amira, “Amira’s Mother,” is now a Cairo resident living on one of Downtown’s roof tops with her husband, Gamal, and their two daughters. Having no other option but to toughen up to support her family and her sick daughter who has heart disease, Om Amira sells homemade fried potatoes sandwiches in a side street, meters away from Tahrir Square where the spark of the Egyptian Revolution started.

BEST EDITING

AFTER THE FALL: HIV GROWS UP
Director: Frederick Taylor
2012 | USA | Romania
40 min

In 1989, as Communism fell across Eastern Europe, doctors and nurses in Romania quickly discovered they were dealing with a grand epidemic of pediatric AIDS in their hospitals and institutions. This film offers an intimate portrait of some of the survivors- heroes with inspiring stories that demonstrate triumph in the face of remarkable challenges.

BEST SOUND EDITING

THE LITTLE GUERILLA GIRL
Director: Giancarlo Bocchi
2013 | Italy | Burma |
42 min.

For the last seventy years, the Karen, one of the most important ethnic minorities in Burma, have been fighting for their freedom, first against the Japanese and immediately afterwards against the military regime in power. In the longest armed resistance in contemporary history, fought in an impenetrable territory covered in a hostile jungle between Thailand and the Andaman Sea, the Karen women fight on the front line for the independence of their people.

JURY PRIZES DOCUMENTARY CATEGORY

TRANSPARENCY (SPONSORED BY DEEDA PRODUCTIONS)

STEALING AFRICA
Director: Christopher Guldbrandsen
2012 | Zambia | Switzerland | USA | UK
58 min

Zambia has the third largest copper reserves in the world, but 60% of the population lives on less than $1 a day. Ruschlikon is a village in Switzerland with a very low tax rate and very wealthy residents. It receives more tax than it can use thanks to one resident, Ivan Glasenberg, CEO of Glencore, whose copper mines in Zambia are generating huge profits.

STYLISTIC ACHIEVEMENT (SPONSORED BY G TECHNOLOGY)

A RIVER CHANGES COURSE
Director: Kalyanee Mam
2013 | Cambodia
83 min

A River Changes Course captures the stories of three young Cambodians struggling to maintain their traditional way of life while the modern world closes in around them. The once abundant forests and plentiful rivers have fallen victim to land grabbing, deforestation, and dwindling fish stock that rural and indigenous communities heavily depend on to survive. This stunningly photographed documentary is a powerful tribute to the struggles of all families coping with the challenges of a rapidly changing world.

LENS TO ACTION (SPONSORED BY THE ANGEL STATION)

WHEN THE TIME COMES
Director: Charles Gay
2012 | France | Kenya | USA
13 min

Shot among the Samburu semi-nomadic tribe of Kenya, “When The Time Comes” portraits its relation to the ancestral and controversial practice that is female circumcision (Female Genital Cutting) and highlights the inter-generational debate that is taking place in their communities, allowing girls and women to fight for their rights, with the support of many men.

ETHOS (SPONSORED BY DEEDA PRODUCTIONS)

ONE DAY AFTER PEACE

Director: Erez Laufer
2012 | Israel | South Africa
86 min

Can the means used to resolve the conflict in South Africa be applied to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict? Born in South Africa during the Apartheid era, Robi attempts to initiate a dialogue with the Palestinian who killed her son while he was serving in the Israeli Army. After facing rejection, she embarks on a journey back to South Africa to learn more about the country’s TRC in overcoming years of enmity. Robi’s thought-provoking journey leads from a place of deep personal pain to a belief that a better future is possible.

JURY PRIZES – IMPACT VIDEO CATEGORY

INNOVATION (SPONSORED BY GO CAMPAIGN)

THE WALLS
Director: Gonzalo Escuder & Nacho Gomez
2013 | USA | Spain
14 min

Students from Washington State University visit the prison at Coyote Ridge in order to participate in a debate about gun control. The rest of the participants are the debate club members from the prison – a group of inmates that have been transformed and inspired by their new contact with education; prisoners that cling to it as their last chance for redemption.

IMPACT (SPONSORED BY GO CAMPAIGN)

THE ROAD TOWARD PALESTINIAN SELF-DETERMINATION IN DEVELOPMENT
Director: Sami Alalul
2013 | Palestine
10 min

How can Palestinians achieve self-determination in development if they don’t control their own resources? Palestinian community foundation, the Dalia Association, shows how small, unrestricted grants help communities focus on their priorities and build skills and credibility to increase impact.

BEST SOUND EDITING

THE STATE OF INSANITY
Director: Francesco Cordio
2013 | Italy
72 min

In Italy there are 6 OPG, commonly called criminal asylums, in which about 1500 people are locked up. The first-person account of an actor, ex-inmate in one of these hospitals, is intertwined with scenes filmed, without prior notice, in these places that have been “forgotten” about even by the State.

SPECIAL MENTIONS – DOCUMENTARY FEATURE CATEGORY
FUTURE MY LOVE
Director: Maja Borg| UK | Sweden
How much freedom are we prepared to give to the ones we love? And how much responsibility are we ready to take for our society? At the brink of losing the idealistic love of her life, Borg explores a radically different economic and social model proposed by 95-year-old futurist Jacque Fresco and poignantly depicts the universal struggle between our heads and hearts in times of big change.

TOUGH BOND
Directors: Anneliese Vandenberg & Austin Peck | USA | Kenya
There is a new tribe in Kenya called “Survivors” and they are easily identified by the bottle pressed against their lips. This fiercely loyal gang of children exists in the margins of an urban wilderness, huffing glue to endure the hell of street life. Following 4 kids over three years, Tough Bond delivers an alarming portrait of life in modern day Kenya.

THE SHEBABS OF YARMOUK
Director: Axel Salvatori-Sinz | France | Syria
The Shebabs have made up a small group of boys & girls since they were teens. Now on the eve of adulthood, they have a genuine thirst for life and for absolute, while being all confronted to intricate situations. Between the need for freedom and sticking to the group, between longing for revolt and the prospect of a well-ordered life, choices are hard to make; even more so if you’re a Palestinian refugee in the camp of Yarmouk, in Syria.

SPECIAL MENTIONS – DOCUMENTARY SHORT CATEGORY
THROUGH THE FIRE
Director: Eunice Lau | Somalia
For two decades, Nobel Peace Prize Nominee Dr Hawa Abdi has been a beacon of hope for 90,000 Somalis who found refuge on her farm during the conflict. At age 19, Ilwad Elman returned to war-torn Mogadishu to continue the work of her father by running rehabilitation programs for child soldiers. After witnessing the destruction of her homeland, Edna Adan returned to Hargeisa to build the University Hospital of Somaliland. ‘Through the Fire’ shows how three remarkable women helped hold their country together during its darkest hour.

THE SOUND BARRIER
Directors: Thibault Dufour & Philip Drouin | Burkina Faso | France | USA
A mosquito-repellent soap that prevents malaria, straw bricks made out of agricultural residues for more sustainable housing, a biodigester made out of recycled plastic to create bio-gas for rural populations. The film follows 3 innovative social business ideas from students in Africa to take on major challenges faced by their continent. As they compete with hundreds of projects from around the world, one project starts to demonstrate that it just might have what it takes to make it all the way; a step towards international recognition that could mean a symbolic victory for the African youth.

MY NEIGHBOURHOOD
Directors: Julia Bacha & Rebekah Wingert-Jabi | USA | Palestine | Israel
My Neighbourhood chronicles the coming-of-age story of Mohammed El Kurd, a Palestinian boy growing up in the heart of East Jerusalem. When Mohammed turns 11, his family is forced to give up part of their home to Israeli settlers, who are leading a campaign of court-sanctioned evictions to guarantee Jewish control of the area. Determined to remain in their homes, Mohammed and his neighbors wage a campaign of nonviolent protests against the evictions. In a surprising turn, they are quickly joined by scores of Israeli supporters who are horrified to see what is being done in their name.