Radio mets the Arts - events management
Transcript
Radio mets the Arts - events management
SUMMARY RADIO COMPETITION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . TV COMPETITION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . WEB COMPETITION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FOR NEW RADIO FORMATS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . GOLDEN AWARD FOR INTERNATIONAL TV COPRODUCTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . 2 17 30 37 38 42 SPECIAL PRIZE EXPO MILANO 2015 . . . . . . . . . . . GOLDEN AWARD 3 A WEEK 348 STORIES RADIO COMPETITION Radio mets the Arts (Poetry, Literature, Theatre, Mithology) A s in the case of Inferno (Hell) and of Purgatorio (Purgatory), Paradiso (Paradise) from Dante’s Divine Comedy is to be experienced as an initiation rite. It translates the extravagant gesture of a language that attempts to grasp the inexpressible. Around three of the last chants of this epic, entirely tending toward a vertiginous and instant ascension, the music resolutely chooses to turn this paradise into an unprecedented human experience. Split between sung dialogues and recited texts, the tensions and the violence of the emotions experienced are mixed with loving tenderness and ecstatic happiness (Paradise – Radio France, France). This play, an adaptation of the documentary story of the same name by Renowned Russian Literary Critic Victor Beilis, is about two remarkable poets: Joseph Brodsky and Wystan Hugh Auden. Both, without ever knowing each other personally, recognized the other’s great talent by just reading the other’s verses. Their fates brought them to America – Auden from England and Brodsky from Russia. They then happened to meet in a small Austrian village. After that encounter the poets began to enthusiastically translate each others’ verses. Thus the two geniuses’ friendship and mutual admiration enriched the culture of England, Russia and indeed that of the whole world (Two Poets: Auden and Brodsky – RTR, Russia). In Echelon, I amalgamate the texts of three poets, where Elsa Grave takes on the clairvoyant’s role without eclipsing the others’ efforts. The music uses words to introduce us to a story beyond words and their meanings, a world with associations and new meaning in its own right. By translating tone steps in Bach’s Sarabande for solo cello into time sections, I have been free to make abrupt changes in the flow of the music. To me, Tarkovsky and Vesaas’ texts form a channel into their poetic worlds (Echelon – Sveriges Radio, Sweden). This musical radio play, by two composers closely associated with Ensemble Modern, tells the story of creativity and – what Churchill and 3 Chaplin called ‘The Black Dog’ – depression. It is the story of Australian Poet Les Murray, who was born in 1938. An Asperger’s syndrome sufferer, Les Murray lends his own unique expression to his poetic works. On a second level the story involves the return to his place of birth and, citing Celtic forbears, it evokes an Australia which has now almost disappeared: a merciless and yet poetic country, where nature displays strange traits with which man must wrestle (Bunyah – ARD, Germany). The show, a radio adaptation of two short stories by Mikhail Bulgakov, The Towel with the Cockerel Motif and The Steel Windpipe, centres on a young, recent medical graduate, assigned to the hospital in the village Muriino, describing two serious medical cases – two intense human experiences, loaded with emotion. The doctor’s monologue, punctuated by unrest, fears, memories, attests the beginner’s uncertainties about his chosen profession, his sadness to be leaving Moscow, and also the joy of seeing that his clinical skills, instinct and intuition defeat disease (Two short stories by Mikhail Bulgakov, The Towel with the Cockerel Motif and The Steel Windpipe – ROR, Romania). In 1953, Nobel Prize Winner Ivo Andrič wrote an allegorical story based on the traditional fables about a little lamb and a wolf, speaking about art, the struggles of life, growing up, trust, and the immense force born from extreme life situations. Like the Narrator Scheherazade, Aska prolongs her life by dancing. When she finds herself eye to eye with an old wolf, she launches into her ‘dance for life’. This radio-phonic allegory expresses Andrič’s stance about art as the victor over the ephemerality and deterioration of life. The original electronic music is a dramaturgical element that creates an image of dancing through its sound (Aska and The Wolf – HRT, Croatia). Staged first in January 1904, just six months before Chekov’s own death and considered his masterpiece by many, the play 4 speaks of the loss of a magnificent property belonging to some aristocrats. The cherry orchard, famous throughout Russia, is sold at an auction to cover debts. The orchard is bought by the family’s land agent who intends cutting down the trees to parcel the property and build cottages. Liubov’ Andreievna Ranevskaia is a tragic figure, who returns after several years to the home of her childhood. This orchard in fact represents an oasis of beauty and peace for her, recollections of a happy past. After the sale, everything will be lost, like the fragile beauty that the cherries in flower foretell. A text, written at the beginning of a century, depicting the end of an epoch (The Cherry Orchard – RV, Vatican State). Where there are humans, there is music. Where there is war, there is noise. Music is part of every culture and enters all facets of our lives, exciting emotions, colouring memories. Going back thousands of years, records show that music has been a vital part of warfare both for communication and as a psychological tool, galvanising fighters and intimidating the foe. In this documentary our guide is the Celtic Crow Goddess, The Morrigan, who presides over war and death on the battlefield. She gives a kaleidoscopic view through the millennia and across the globe, hovering over the fallen, exploring the soundtrack to war. When is a musical instrument a weapon and when does a weapon make music? From before the Fall of Jericho to Desert Storm and beyond, sonic war is out there (Instruments of War – ABC, Australia). Divna’s adventure with the trolls starts on the day when her mother gives her a small dark eyed troll called Ghandy. Divna soon discovers that Ghandy is not an ordinary troll of the Tuft family, but a really wise little fellow prone to deep thinking. However, Ghandy is by no means a loner. He has many friends among the trolls and other elfish and extraordinary creatures. Ghandy will demonstrate what a great friend he is when pepper Slavko-Dalibor, his best friend, suddenly disappears. That is when Divna and Ghandy wander into the miraculous world of trolls looking for the missing pepper. Trolls and other friends help them (and sometimes interfere) in their search. When they finally locate the pepper, the trolls organise a great party celebrating love and friendship (Life with Trolls – SBC/RTS, Serbia). Radio Entertains, Informs, Denounces and Inquires In The Original Soundtrack – ‘The French Edition’, Famous Belgian Pop Singer Bent van Looy guides the listener through his hometown Paris. “Paris is a city to walk in” he claims and that’s exactly what he does. He walks from one movie set to another talking about his favourite scenes and soundtracks. Restaurants, bookstores, the streets of Montmartre, the bridges over the Seine, les banlieues, each inspiring observations about art, history, crime, literature and movies. From Picasso, La Nouvelle Cuisine, The Three Musketeers, Henry Miller to François Truffaut and Georges Delerue. This soundscape of movie quotes, the best of French film music and the sounds of the city make the perfect soundtrack for a walk through Paris. Paris by night, Paris in the rain... the city of romance. “We’ll always have Paris.” (The Original Soundtrack – ‘The French Edition’ – VRT, Belgium). Sherre DeLys and Hal Cannon took a road trip across Texas to find relationships between the cultural and natural landscape through music and sound. They went to record people who live close to the land and sing about it, working cowboys and ranch women. The producers then turned their microphones to the ecology surrounding this isolated life – daily silences, bird songs, wind and the gait of horses. Over an 1800-mile journey they began to discover an awareness to the senses that is lost to most of us living in a noisy world. What emerges is a symphonic soundscape of Texas, a harmony of the natural world with the authentic voice from the land (What a Cowboy Hears – ABC, Australia). What if a modern country in Western Europe has a shortage of electricity in the coming winter? Radio 2 will be looking for answers on Stroomdag (Electricity Day). The consumer programme Inspector is setting up a call centre anyone can go to should they have questions. All day long tips are given for a more energy efficient life so that together we can prevent the lights from going out. And on Radio2. be everyone gets all the information neatly summarized on an interactive map. Everyone is reassured and prepared for blackout on Radio 2’s Stroomdag (Electricity Day – VRT, Belgium). Together with an array of scientific knowledge and individual experiences on the effects of the energies emitted from the Bosnian Pyramids, The Story from the Bosnian Valley of the Pyramids – Beyond Reality moreover examines the origin of civilisation, the state of civilisation today, and its impact on the future (The Story from the Bosnian Valley of the Pyramids – Beyond Reality – HRT, Croatia). Radio Producer Jan Maarten Deurvorst was a student of anthropology when he first visited Guinea Bissau on the West African coast. He slept under a blanket of flies, drank rusty water and saw pigs fight over his turds. He was in one of the poorest countries in the world and he hated it. But much to his surprise, lots of Dutchmen love to be in Guinea Bissau. To understand how they are able to see paradise where he saw hell on earth, Jan Maarten travels back to this place (Paradise – NPO, The Netherlands). Clip 1: Drive Straight Ahead. A GPS helps a driver navigate the realm of emotional loss. Clip 2: Call of Dating. A woman jumps through hoops to find romance in a new dating video game. Clip 3: Teddy Bear Sanctuary. A recent study 5 found that 35% of British adults sleep with a Teddy Bear. Host Jonathan Goldstein speaks with one British man who revels in the comfort of his Teddy Bear sanctuary. Clip 4: Reply All. A workplace email thread goes awry when people accidentally ‘reply all’. Clip 5: Who Am I Talking To? A man’s monologue to his unborn child (Five Modern Tales – CBC/SRC, Canada). The play Hilda exposes the problem of modern day slavery, increasingly evident in the world today and, sadly enough, in Slovenia as well. Even though Mrs. Lemarchand believes herself to be a leftist, objecting to any form of servitude and refusing to use the term ‘slave’, her actions contradict this. She exerts complete control over her maidservant, thus annihilating Hilda both psychologically and physically and, in the process, destroying herself as well. In spite of the evident socially relevant subject, in the text the problem of supremacy springing from the mistress’ perverted obsession with Hilda assumes a profoundly psychological dimension (Hilda – RTVSLO, Slovenia). His aim was artistic provocation. His method, criticism of the clergy and the core of religion. The work was immediately banned after publication in 1894 and its author, Oskar Panizza sentenced to one year in solitary confinement for blasphemy. Oskar Panizza, weakened by the imprisonment, emigrated to Switzerland and to Paris in 1897. Since prison, his health steadily deteriorated with bouts of depression, hallucination and paranoia before dying in 1921 – 16 years later – in a sanatorium. In 2014 – more than 120 years after it was first published –Austrian Actor Wolfram Berger presented his own adaption and interpretation, a brilliant ‘radio drama’ (The Love Council – ORF, Austria). The documentary series The Patient and the Silence provides a shocking insight into how insecure the apparently safe Swedish healthcare system is. The first part, Doctors of Crime, reveals how doctors and psychologists can commit 6 serious crimes and still keep their jobs. A surgeon drink drives on the way to work. A paediatrician abuses children. A psychiatrist is found guilty of rape. What happens then? We find over 50 doctors and psychologists that have been convicted of serious crimes, crimes the healthcare authorities are not aware of (Doctors of Crime – Sveriges Radio, Sweden). 14-year-old Maria Víllas goes out one night to have fun and meets a man who calls himself the Lone Ranger. He appears sophisticated and takes her with him to a bar. Maria is impressed and allows herself to be tempted into the man’s car, only to be immediately tied up, drugged and abducted. Her mother and sister are rudely rebuffed by the police when they try to report her missing. In the region of Ciudad Juárez, on the border between Mexico and the USA, hundreds disappear without trace every year, and neither press nor police are in the least interested in finding out what has happened to them (The Death of Maria Víllas - part 2 of 3 – Sveriges Radio, Sweden). The programme is based on the interrogation log of American military prison Guantanamo Bay Detainee 063 (On the Shore Dimly Seen – ABC, Australia). The programme focuses on the private investigations of Dr. László Németh, who more than ten years ago started to investigate, together with a team of experts, why his air hostess wife, Ágnes Tallér and the 59 passengers on the flight had to die and who was responsible. The programme presents the most probable reasons for the crash with the help of Hungarian and foreign experts, eye witnesses, relatives, as well as minutes, secret documents and archive recordings (The Flight of Secrets – Part 3 – MTVA, Hungary). It’s spring, and the new civil engineer graduates are holding a big party in Kallio, Helsinki. Simon Lindell is one of the celebrating graduates. He leaves the party at around 9 p.m., but he never comes home. What happened to Simon that night after the party remains a mystery (23-yearold Simon who disappeared – YLE, Finland). Radio Experiments with Music and Interacts with its Audience RadioBattle is the first European Radio Championship. Eight radios, public and private, from as many countries, competed in a music battle, track by track. The main control centre was in the Rai Radio2 studios in Milan, from where Referee Filippo Solibello, the creator of RadioBattle, broadcast. Each show had three studios airing from three different countries. The participants at the first season were Germany, Estonia, Serbia, Italy, Iceland, Slovenia, Sweden and Latvia. Latvia was crowned 2015 European Radio Champion. The voting process was by popular vote (via Twitter). Tweet Record: The final registered 100,000 Tweets in just 1 hour! (RadioBattle – RAI, Italy). Thursday Live is an interactive concert series featuring the Norwegian Radio Orchestra, broadcast live on NRK Radio and on the Internet. Via social media, the live audience, radio audience and Internet audience share their concert impressions and provide comments during the concert. Two hosts are on stage to present the music, interview performers and members of the audience as well as to invite people to send in pictures. A reporter moreover passes on questions and comments arriving from the social media. The goal is to activate the audience and share the concert experience with the country’s entire population (Thursday Live – NRK, Norway). Selected by the Guardian newspaper as one of the top live events of the year, Benedict Mason’s Meld was one of the most eagerly-awaited and spectacular moments of the 2014 Proms season. Commissioned by the BBC, several years in the writing and planning, and given its premiere performance by Chantage, Mason’s site-specific work drew on the many opportunities afforded by the huge circular space that is the Royal Albert Hall, confounding the distinction between the concert venue and the piece, to the delight and surprise of the audience (Meld – BBC, United Kingdom). The Unbeatables – Finland’s Best Freestyle Rap On Air is a music show based on cooperation between two Finnish rap artists and their radio audience. During the live shows, the audience communicates with the rap artists and gives them rap topics on the live show via Twitter, the channel’s own Shoutbox and also by phone. The improvisational skills and linguistic wit of the rappers create surprising stories in breath-taking speed. The show is a triumph of the Finnish language, spiced with pop and rap music (The Unbeatables – Finland’s Best Freestyle Rap On Air – YLE, Finland). The Radio Kraków produced premiere of the radio drama, broadcast live on 20th February 2014, from Studio R. Bobrowska, with interaction with the public. Hate is a monologue sung by Marek Koterski and with an actor playing various parts. The word Hate, repeatedly said by listeners in a bid to put an end to frustrations, provides the leit motiv for the programme. The various characters are played by Krzysztof Globisz, a member of the Kraców National Theatre (Stay Teatr) (Hate – PR, Poland). Is it necessary to learn the notes in order to understand classical music? Are we certain that musical comprehension should start from the basics? In the live radio programme Music explained to my Children Nicola Campogrande suggests a different approach from the usual ones, proposing an ironic composition course open to everyone, grown-ups and children, experts and neophytes. In 14 episodes, around 100 music pieces are disassembled, to discover their inner logic by thinking as a composer, bringing up subjects like ‘Accompaniment and Counterpoint’, ‘Writing for Orchestra’, ‘The Role of Soloists’, ‘Forte-piano-crescendo-diminuendo’ (The Music 7 explained to my Children – RAI, Italy). Making a work of art is a monologue. The artwork is dug from the soil of the subconscious and not even the artist himself is familiar with every one of his thoughts. Soliloque introduces a singer and five solo instruments producing recognizable tones. But what are the tones that surround, punctuate, and overlap the solos of familiar instruments? Are they the sound of the artist’s subconscious? A monologue? (Soliloque – YLE, Finland). Rikke Houd follows Stig as he gets fitted for a new set of teeth. The recordings of his repeated visits to the dentist are spliced together with an interview in his cluttered home, where he spends his days getting drunk and crying over films, often Titanic. Its two locations, the sitting room and the dentist’s chair, are masterfully woven together, allowing the raw and often uncomfortable energy of the recordings to hit the listener on a visceral level (Stig’s Teeth – Radio24syv, Denmark). Programme for the Birthday of Art 2014 and the 90th Anniversary of Radio Belgrade. The Voices in Space represents the sound fantasy about the planet Earth observed from the cosmos and about human voices coming from it. These voices of joy, happiness, try to communicate in various planetary languages and even attempt interplanetary contact and, what’s more, maybe the voices of sadness and terribleness – all rising up directly from the Earth, via fast expanding spheres of air molecules as well as via radio waves (The Voices in Space – SBC/RTS, Serbia). The innovative form of live performance of Bonsai combinations and live playing on unique musical instruments (Steam - The Symphony of Energies – RTVS, Slovakia). Is music a sound only, or also a language delivering definite messages? This programme attracts a wide range of listeners and draws their attention to classical and modern music revealing its completely unknown side: music can contain hidden information. Author 8 Oleg Troyanovsky, a professional composer, describes various cases of encryption in music starting from the 16th century – from Bach till nowadays – in an atmosphere of a documental detective story featuring renowned modern Russian, German and American composers and musicologists (Encrypted in Music – RTR, Russia). 2055. The near future. Planet earth had lost its key life source – water. Water has been replaced by a gelatine made of turnip, especially cultivated for this purpose by a multinational company Pescho. Marek Epstein is among the most outstanding and busiest contemporary young Czech scriptwriters, working also for television and cinema. He has won several prestigious awards, including the 2014 Prix Europa Best TV Fiction prize (Pescho – CZCR, Czech Republic). A radio play about the relationship between the owner of a country house (‘dacha’) called User by the playwright and Thermometer – a completely inanimate being, a machine installed to maintain the required level of heat in the house. A story of loneliness, self-doubt, love, humaneness and a great deal more happening to us in this modern frenetic world (Mechanical Contact – RTR, Russia). Spam Symphony transforms ‘Intimacy’, Author Nora Ružièkova’s exquisitely lucid text, into an existentially distressing piece of work. The central theme deals with brainwashing by women’s magazines and their ‘advice’ columns as well as by those tabloids, peppered with observations from psychology experts (Spam Symphony – RTVS, Slovakia). Radio Keeps Traditions Alive Two elderly brothers, from the county of Cavan, journey to Knockfierna Hill in West Limerick, in order to make good on a promise to their late mother. They recite the family lore over the course of this road trip, summoning memories of their parents’ performances on the Empire Builder train route, but also their mother’s past as a white witch (Toronto and the State of Grace – RTÉ, Ireland). Every tradition is rooted in the past and derives, for each one of us, from our common background... which is what Musician Mehdi Aminian has been thinking about for many years. A number of foreign musicians, themselves passionate about traditional ney or duduk music, created a new experience, a national tournament devoted to a Roots Revival (Mingling with Soul – Romanian Roots Revival – ROR, Romania). Nele is a wacky but very curious young lady with a great love for the radio. On the occasion of its 100th anniversary, she undertakes, like Alice in Wonderland, a trip into Radio Land and has the most amazing adventures. She discovers the first Belgian radio broadcasts and finds radio gems of yesteryear. On her journey she also meets the heroes and heroines of radio. Her adventure ends in the future. Nele in Radio Land is a creative series on the history of radio in Belgium. The fairy tale setting creates tension, humour and adventure. In a very colourful way it gives the listener an insight into the emergence of radio in our country (Nele in Radio Land – VRT, Belgium). Radio Stands by the Needy and Suffering Heroin has made quite a comeback in the USA. Many states are struggling with alarming spikes in the number of overdose deaths. The drug popularity is tied to the abuse of strong painkillers, opiates, like OxyContin. Throughout the country, the official response varies: a ‘laissez-faire’ approach, tougher law enforcement, compassion. Vermont is both one of the hardest-hit places in the country and a model for those seeking solutions. There, local authorities are sparing no efforts in their nontraditional way to fight this epidemic. Yanik Dumont Baron went to Vermont to check it out (The Ravages of Heroin Addiction in Vermont – CBC/SRC, Canada). Meuse county in northeastern France holds the national record for heroin consumption! With Maastricht in the Netherlands just a three hour drive, heroin is ravaging the countryside. Law enforcement, the judiciary and medics explain the ins-and-outs of drug-taking in a rural district totally unprepared for this wave of junkies (Junkies in the Country – Radio France, France). The Confessional – a web page where people anonymously share their experience with suicide. They search for someone who would painlessly die with them. Two of them openly speak on the microphone. Both of them see ending their lives as an extreme alternative to solving their problems. They defend their motives for their actions, explaining they are not forcing anything on anyone. They sound strangely pragmatic, in fact reasonable (Hi, I Want to Die – CZCR, Czech Republic). The lonely pensioner wandering ghost-like through our cities looking for returnable bottles is an image of the past: the aging and dying are being outsourced from Germany. Poldi and Gretchen have reached retirement age. Time to count their savings. Can only people with a sum in their bank accounts, or can prove they have a regular monthly pension, spend their final years in Germany? The rest will have to pack their bags and say good-bye to the fatherland and seek a secure retirement abroad. Poldi has booked somewhere for him and his bees in a certified retirement home in Poland. For a smaller fee, Gretchen has bought her ticket in a seniors’ residence in south-west China (Retirement Overseas - Sha Ji Jing Hou (Slaughter a Chicken to Cow the Monkeys) – ARD, Germany). As Penelope Simpson approaches her 80th birthday, she decides to embrace her inevitable death. An enthusiastic artist, she orders a plain coffin and paints its lid with snowdrops, clematis, poppies and daisies from her garden. 9 Then she invites her friends and family to add whatever they want on the coffin: one does a red boat; another, angels. But when her granddaughter Olivia comes to stay, a profound connection between them is revealed. As Olivia and Poppy discuss life and its ending, they face their own mortality and we, the listeners, face ours (Pushing Up The Daisies – BBC, United Kingdom). Songül and her siblings, Dogan, Leyla, Pinar, and Halil, tragically lost their biological mother when between 4 and 10 years old respectively. Born into a family of Turkish immigrants, they were first placed in a home and later in a SOS children’s hostel. ‘An angel who came to save us’ … that is how they saw their new mother, Angela Sasshofer. This 40 year old woman from Lower Austria, who had travelled extensively professionally, discovered a yearning to do something with real meaning (Two Mothers – ORF, Austria). This documentary radio drama looks at the flood that struck Slavonia on May 17th. Just after the water receded, Josip Kruniæ from Podgajci, an experienced elementary school teacher in Gunja and mentor, leader of the multimedia group Studio of Creative Ideas Gunja, followed the Rajevo village pastor on a tour of the flooded areas and recorded everything he saw (The Flood – HRT, Croatia). Each year, a happy event turns into an unhappy one for more than 250 parents in Denmark. Dreams of life as a mum and dad are suddenly shattered – when the new baby – for one reason or another – dies just before birth. This is the story of Anton, who never had a life outside his mother’s womb. A story about dreams and everything that could have been - told by Anton’s father, Jesper Dein (Anton is flying – DR, Denmark). ‘Now, you stay where you are!’. With these words, Anders leaves his 12-year-old son Lasse in a snowdrift, while he continues up a mountain with Lasse’s elder brother Rasmus. The sun is high in a clear blue sky. Short of breath 10 they reach the top, but as Anders looks over his shoulder his smile freezes, as dark clouds come rolling over the mountain. A blizzard is rising. Anders and Rasmus hurry downwards, but they are too late. Lasse is gone. Anders searches desperately, only to find the vast, white void (Snowblind – DR, Denmark). Anna and Inga grew up together. They had a happy and safe childhood and a mother who took care of them. They grow up and Teenage Anna commits suicide. A mother loses her daughter, a daughter loses her sister. They both feel anger and guilt. Why did Anna take her own life? Could they have done something to stop her? Both Inga and her mother are floundering after their tragedy. Boats on the Water is about living on after loss, and how important we are for each other (Boats on the Water – NRK, Norway). Naoko and Shogo lost their 20-yearold son in a tragic accident. Unable to accept the sudden death of their beloved son, their once happy marriage slowly starts to crumble. Their relationship had been built around their son and now they are left with the realisation they knew so little about each other. They disagree, clash and grow further apart. Can they come to accept their son’s death and love each other once again as husband and wife? (Blue Skies and A Shooting Star – NHK, Japan). Tore Nagel is Norway’s oldest base jumper. 63 years old, he wants to jump from one of the world’s most dangerous cliffs, Trollveggen, ‘Troll’s Wall’. The cliff face is 1,500 meters high. Tore Nagel has cancer, and he jumps to celebrate life and feel he is alive. While he is climbing up the mountainside to get to the top from where he’ll jump, Espen Thoresen tries to follow and ask him about the most difficult themes in his life, about love, betrayal and loneliness. But will Tore Nagel dare to jump, when he has been confronted with so much of what gives him bad karma, just before he jumps? (Wuthering Heights – NRK, Norway). An impassioned one-man opera about an optimist’s optimism. The Hour of the Rabbit begins with an accident, one as hilarious as is fatal. The victim is Rico, a Dutch-Italian, diehard romantic with a heart too big for his own good. In our presentation, we see the movie of Rico’s life, as it flashes before his eyes just moments before his death. His joys, his sorrows, his good and not-so-good days zoom by in this tale packed full of memories and images. The tumultuous life of an incorrigible optimist who seems to have been fated at birth to a life of trial and tribulation (The Hour of the Rabbit – NPO, The Netherlands). In this modern classic, a 12-year-old girl seems to be possessed by a demon. Doctors are baffled so her mother turns to troubled priest and psychiatrist Damien Karras, who identifies a profound malevolence in Regan’s distorted body and foul-mouthed speech. An experienced exorcist, Father Merrin, is called in. But the real exorcist is Karras; in an act of great courage and compassion, he challenges the demon to leave the girl and come into him. Broadcast late at night in two episodes, The Exorcist is scary, of course, but also a meditation on faith, vocation and what makes us human (The Exorcist – BBC, United Kingdom). “I went into the slaughter house for the first time in December 2009. Three years later I came back with the intention of completing a photographic project there. Another year later, I had questions to ask of Olivier, Christelle, Sébastien and Hervé... Meaning that significant meetings can take time... The spark inspiring me had come from Sébastien, four years earlier, and his somewhat wary, embarrassed look – not embarrassed or ashamed of his work, but worried about what I might think of it. That look was the beginning. With their bloody hands, their long sharpened knives at their waists, their radiant and caring smiles, they have seduced me and convinced me that there was something profound, paradoxical, about human nature to be found there...”, Tony Hayère. (Killing – Radio France, France). Radio Talks about Everyday Life, in a Growing Multi-Ethnic Society A day in the life of Jamila, Adyan, Sinem & Sinem: school, hanging out, eating döner at the Orient eck on Kottbusser Tor. They are aged 14 and 15 and attend Year 10 at a secondary school in the Berlin district of Kreuzberg. Their parents are from Palestine, Egypt, Turkey and Iraq. Apart from Adyan, all the girls were born in Berlin. Adyan is from Baghdad and has been living in Germany for 6 years. They are growing up in the heart of Kreuzberg: this is their home. Home, for the girls, is where their friends are, where they go to school, where they know their way around and where they can speak German. In their parents’ countries they feel like tourists. They count as ‘the Germans’. But in Germany they do not see themselves as Germans (Kids, Kreuzberg (Berlin): 4 Girls, 24 Hours – ARD, Germany). Six protagonists – black, white, Jewish, Muslim – looking for love outside their community. Antoinette meets Félix on a black online dating site. Brahim, a free-thinker and lover of life, meets Gülnaz on a Muslim site. Gülnaz, a young Kurdish woman, has had a love affair with Félix that she kept secret from her family. She works for Elsa, a Jewish pharmacist whose mother is pressuring her to marry. Elsa meets Mathieu, someone fascinated by her culture. A Frenchman going back eight generations, Mathieu is proud to be identified as a Communist. Six characters interact in dream or reality, each seeking love, yet torn between their identity and community, each finding their own way of dealing with this complex relationship (Traitors – Arte Radio, France). On December 13th 2012, 11 half-a-million Swedes turned on their TVs to watch the celebration of Saint Lucia’s Day, a local Christmas ceremony regarded as a ray of light in the dark Swedish winter. This year, the honour of playing Saint Lucia fell on Astrid Cederlöf, a 14-year-old girl adopted from India. Reaction to the Saint being played by a dark-skinned girl was instant – social media was soon boiling over with racist remarks about a Swedish tradition forever destroyed. The programme follows how Astrid Cederlöf’s life was upended by thousands of hateful comments. It also portrays two of the people who anonymously offended the young schoolgirl in a country increasingly plagued by racism (The Black Saint – Sveriges Radio, Sweden). An investigation into the ages of the everyday life of 25 ordinary people from 0 to 100 years old. Our lives are very different from each others’, but the stages are similar for many: birth, first memories, the beginning of school, the first kiss, exams, the first major decisions, first big changes, difficulties in finding a job, the ripeness of love, the first day of retirement, the very last days of life. A Life remixes the genres of drama, documentary and storytelling into a live show in which the host is concurrently the storyteller, the script author and the actor. A six month journey through Italy to find stories of common people. A series about what we have been, are now and indeed might be. Different ages, different people but only …A Life (A Life – RAI, Italy). There are many reasons for hating the Christmas holidays. One is having to meet all those friends and relatives who left Italy a few years ago to make their future abroad. People who return for about ten days only and then depart again for far away places, those full of possibilities and opportunities, difficult to imagine in this country. The main character has always tried to avoid meeting these returning visitors. But this time he resolves to face them… because perhaps remaining has been the 12 wrong decision and the moment has come to choose where to go (The Returned – RAI, Italy). For a long time, a hundred-year-old theatre programme had been hidden and forgotten in a wardrobe in the attic of a country house. Found by an amateur actor, it helped connect the past and the present. The simple, unsophisticated and archaic play entitled Not to America was first staged at the beginning of World War I, while a hundred years later it is performed in a village theatre by the descendants and successors of the original actors. The documentary combines theatrical fiction with the sweet-and-sour stories of early 20th century emigrants and with modern day adventures of those seeking their fortune in the ‘New World’. A century ago, the people leaving were manual workers, while now it is the white collar workers’ turn to go. What, however, they have in common is their fascination with America (Not to America – RTVSLO, Slovenia). With this reportage Michela Daghini takes you on a visit to the Monastery of the Discalced Carmelites of Legnano, to the north of Milan. The 16 sisters living life inside the walls agreed to open their door to share a few moments of their day and relate what choosing to live within the enclosure entails. The Sisters of Carmel nuns, whose order was founded in 1593 by St. Teresa d’Avila, are mainly devoted to contemplative prayer, but during this meeting we also discover the liveliness of their daily routine, chock full of activities and varied emotions (A Cloistered Life – SRG SSR, Switzerland). What promises do we make to the person we love? What do we say, dazzled by love? What dreams do we fashion together, and how do we formulate our shared project? Where do the promises go when the relationship fails, when love ends, when the light dissipates? Do the promises survive somewhere, in our body, in a little pocket near our heart? Or, like the love, are they crushed forever? (True love will find you in the end – Radio France, France). What do we need in life? A TV set, a car, a phone? Can we live differently? Léa Promaja invites us to discover Fabrizio and his son Siddharta’s way of life amidst the hills of Cupramontana, in the Italian Marche. A sound immersion in the daily life of a man who chose to live as independently as possible, without all things he sees as unnecessary. Thirty years have gone by and Fabrizio carries on living self-sufficiently. He welcomes all those who want to learn about his choices, his everyday life (A Little Plus – SRG SSR, Switzerland). Koichi Shimano (32) has separated from his wife and been working as a private detective in this fishing port for the past few months. His job entails investigating a homeless man, Takeshi Yamato (65), and reporting back to his client. What does the word home in homeless mean? Is it your house, your family? Or is it the time in your life you value most. Our story tells of a homeless pensioner and a man who pursues him looking for answers. Through their different ways of living, we find out what it means to identify The Time of Your Life (The Time of Our Life – NHK, Japan). This piece from the Voivodeship is about the tragic story of two loves: of two men for the same woman. The setting is a hotel on the Istrian peninsula, near the Italian border. The two heroes never meet, their story runs parallel at the same spot, but with a two year time difference. Both are attracted to the same mysterious woman, Lujza, locally well-known, although her business there is far from clear. All the ingredients are in place for an exciting adapted crime story (The Stuffed Bird - In Two Parts – MTVA, Hungary). Radio Tells the Stories of Larger than Life Characters When our radio-station decided to honour a very serious, senior Austrian poetess by broadcasting her short poems in every broadcast on her 90th birthday, we – the authors and presenters of this eclectic music-show – were asked to include two of those poems in our programme. Not an easy task, since our programme neither deals with literature, nor is very serious (on the contrary). 3 days before going on air, we read an interview with the poetess. Were you ever a cheerful person? “I am a melancholy person and can only work when I’m feeling melancholic.” What makes you laugh? “I’m also a big child. My favourite pet is Snoopy. Snoopy’s adventures make me very happy. The way he sits there and types away.” Finally we knew what to do. So, here is our birthday present for highly serious poetess Friederike Mayröcker (‘It Was a Dark and Stormy Night’ – ORF, Austria). The biographical political radio feature sketches the life of Pavel Tigrid, one of the most significant Czech journalists of the 20th century: twice an émigré, fleeing from Nazism and Communism, head of the Czechoslovak section of Radio Free Europe and publisher of the magazine Svìdectví (Testimony). Most of the material was recorded in the 1990s when Tigrid still followed the Czech political scene, an adviser to Czech President Václav Havel and then Minister of Culture (Pavel Tigrid: I Command Myself – CZCR, Czech Republic). Legendary Boxing Trainer Angelo Dundee said that the two best chins in boxing belonged to Muhammad Ali and an Irishman, Sean Mannion. Sugar Ray Leonard said Boston-based Mannion had the heart of a lion, while Marvelous Marvin Hagler could not knock him down through two years of sparring. But to the emigrant community, Sean Mannion was the Gaelic speaking labourer with boxing skills so brilliant he became the No. 1 ranked junior middleweight in the world in the 1980s. The programme tells the story of a quiet humble hero who blazed a trail to a World Title shot in Madison Square Gardens in 1984 13 (Documentary on One - Never Knocked Down – RTÉ, Ireland). More than 200 years ago, Ludwig van Beethoven composed his famous Ninth Symphony. Incredibly, that masterpiece – Ode to Joy - was written when the composer was already profoundly deaf. And yet all these years later, little is known or understood about deaf musicians. In Deaf Jam Willow Yamauchi – herself deaf in one ear – delves into the fascinating world of musicians and composers who shatter misconceptions about the way those with impaired hearing experience sound. And in a first for CBC Radio, American Sign Language-English Interpreter Kathy Munro signs the whole documentary in an accompanying online video, that is also closed captioned for the hearing-impaired (Deaf Jam – CBC/SRC, Canada). The fate that befell Czech Composer, Vítìzslava Kaprálová was marked by tragedy. A genuinely talented young woman, student and also friend of Bohuslav Martinù, she irrefutably had the potential to achieve a great international career. And yet, aged merely 25, she died miles from her parents, her homeland, in the bedlam of the beginning of the WWII. In that short, scantily measured time, she however wrote over 40 music pieces to much critical acclaim from her contemporaries (Vítìzslava – CZCR, Czech Republic). Once a month, we produce a family portrait of a personality from the world of art, history, science etc. This is a story about a prominent Serbian, a global artist, Milena Pavlovic Barili, who was born in Pozarevac, November 5th 1909. Her mother was Serbian, her father Italian. This is all about Milena, her family, her dreams, desires and sorrows (Across the Doorstep – Milena Pavlovic Barili – SBC/RTS, Serbia). Regularly referred to as Poland’s James Bond, Jan Karski, who described his work similar to that of a ‘gramophone record’, stands out as an extraordinary personality with a fascinating life story. An army officer, an emissary for the 14 Polish Underground, Karski reported to the Allies about the horror of German-occupied Poland and the Holocaust, a truth however not to the liking of world rulers. To mark the 10th anniversary of his death, US President Barack Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The Sejm of the Republic of Poland proclaimed 2014 the Year of Jan Karski to mark the centennial of his birth (That Karski – PR, Poland). World War I led to sweeping overall change. Art included. In 1916, in Zurich, the Dada Movement was born, and in 1917, in the USA – which entered the war that very same year – Marcel Duchamp made his artwork, ‘Fountain’. That urinal, exhibited upside down, signed by R. Mutt, was set to change the course of art in 20th and 21st centuries. The programme is a documentary – radio essay about the War, Art, revolutions, Serbia, Europe... about the World in the 20th century (On Fountain and Turtles – SBC/RTS, Serbia). Imagine a factual story on the radio which sounds almost like a song. Urbs aka Paul Nawrata did exactly that. The musician and producer from Vienna has documented the story of Trevor Horn, ‘the man who invented the 80ies’. To achieve this goal, Urbs retells the origins of Horn’s groundbreaking masterpiece: Relax by Frankie Goes to Hollywood. The feature is not supposed to just sound like a song, the goal was to resemble the musical structure of the actual song it is talking about: Relax. The story ends with a major retrospective of Trevor Horn’s music, carefully crafted and mixed by Urbs (FM4 DaviDecks presents: The History of ‘Relax’ by Frankie Goes To Hollywood. A Feature by DJ Urbs – ORF, Austria). Radio, Keeping Memories of Wars, Battlefields and Military Stories Alive A German and a French writer travel together to the battlefields of the 1914-1918 Western Front. Their assignment: to dig up memories, their own, those of others, and those shared by both, from Flanders along the Somme to Verdun. By the trenches, bunker lines and memorial sites they meet descendants of former soldiers, along with historians, tourist guides, souvenir vendors, monument caretakers. Together, the writers also engage in lively discussions, evoking their own personal memories in a frank and direct fashion (14/18 – Let’s Dig! Franco-German Perspectives on the Western Front of the Great War – ARD, Germany). Radio 2, Het Geluidshuis and Gone West on Café Cuba made a radio serial in 46 episodes set during the First World War. Café Cuba had a first rate cast and is a story about friendship, art and love set against the backdrop of the horrors of the First World War. A central role is played by Koenraad Verstockt, a young artist who is sent to the front. Radio 2 found the commemoration of the Great War an ideal opportunity to once again create a radio story, to stimulate the imagination using only voices and sound. The twenty-minute pilot episode of Café Cuba was broadcast on August 4th 2014, the day on which the Germans invaded Belgium exactly 100 years ago. The whole series was broadcast daily on Radio 2 in episodes of four minutes, starting on September 8th. The last episode was aired on November 11th, Armistice Day (Café Cuba – VRT, Belgium). Joe Bonham is a young American who, together with millions of his countrymen, is drafted into service during the First World War. After being hit by an artillery shell in the fighting, he loses his limbs but survives: Joe thinks, and his thoughts are our story. Hours, days, years marked by his heartbeat, by the throbbing of his brain, the sound of his breathing, the reverberation of the doctors’ and nurses’ steps. After years of psychological and physical isolation, Joe succeeds in communicating with the outside world and receives a reply. Joe is once again caught up in a battle and from the trench he shouts out his SOS, indicating that he is alive (Johnny Got His Gun – SRG SSR, Switzerland). Two days before the Second World War reaches Norway, April 7th 1940, waiter Ivar Gundersen reports for work on board the America Liner ‘Bergensfjord’. His wife remains in Bergen with their 17 day old twins and a boy of two and a half years. The three young children are never going to see their father again. What happened to the father who abandoned them? And the children who were abandoned? 74 years after Ivar left, Rolf Gundersen, the only remaining one of Ivar’s Norwegian sons, finally receives a visitor from America, someone who knew his father very well (The American Father – NRK, Norway). During World War II, Slovakia was allied to Hitler’s Germany. On 29th August 1944 the Slovak National Uprising was launched. Fighting against Fascism and for democracy, within two months the insurgents were making a valiant defence deep in their own territory. After the communist coup in 1948 many resistance fighters were imprisoned for their democratic ideals; some even executed. The author’s own grandfather, Gustav Neštiak was also a victim of the reprisals (The Betrayed Insurgents – The Army – RTVS, Slovakia). The Last Days in Helmand is a unique commentary portrait of a small piece of Denmark, located far away from that small northern country. In Camp Bastion, in the middle of the south Afghan desert, 10,000 Danes have over the latest 8 years battled, alongside their allies, the Taleban. The commentary focuses on the Danish troops’ last days in windblown Helmand; a time where everything is being put in crates, also inevitably a time to look back and ponder whether the entire effort had been worthwhile … especially when the cenotaph is being loaded on a plane bound for Denmark (The Last Days in Helmand – DR, Denmark). Lucy’s soldier father is always leaving on dangerous missions. This time, she 15 finds an army manual with instructions on the proper way to disengage from loved ones. Lucy reads it before he goes and learns that sometimes teenagers suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress, causing nightmares and bedwetting – like her. This is a bittersweet modern tale about going to war from the perspective of the children of soldiers. The writer’s own father was in the army and this play explores how a girl accepts mortality (How to Say Goodbye Properly – BBC, United Kingdom). Radio, Remembering The Shoah A young German, an admirer of Polish literature, arrives in Poland for the European Football Champions games. In truth, he is really heading for Drohobych, in the Ukraine, where Bruno Schulz died. Why though does he want to visit these places? The boy turns out to be the grandson of the SS officer who shot the artist. Reflections about guilt and punishment, the sacred and the profane form an integral part of this sound poem (On the Road to Damascus – PR, Poland). Samuel Willenberg is the last living prisoner to survive the Nazi death camp in Treblinka, where around one million Jews were exterminated during World War II. Samuel is 90 years old. The war experiences have determined his entire life. Memories from the camp, where death was omnipresent, haunt him every day. After the war he emigrated to Israel. Once retired, he took up sculpting. He has created some shocking works, depicting people he remembers from the camp (The Last Witness – PR, Poland). This is a hate story, lasting over 50 years, burning with the memory of hornets who never forget the wrongs done to them by their enemies. A story told by three ‘body-less’ voices. The protagonists are Jews, ex-escapees from Vichy France to Switzerland. Now in their 90s, they communicate only through their grand-daughter. We learn their story of flight 16 over the Alps, internment in Swiss work-camps, and then a post-war landscape in which the grandfather works as an interpreter for the Nazi Hermann Göring at the Nuremberg Trials (Hornet Memory – SRG SSR, Switzerland). Radio Tells of Dictatorships and Revolutions This programme takes us to Thingyan, Burma’s New Year Water Festival. New Year is always a time for renewal, but this year Burma’s people want real change. In October the country will host its first democratic general election in 25 years. Thingyan means ‘Change’, and the water festival metaphorically washes away errors of the past, cleansing the way for the new year. This year 22 year old student Aint Thiri Thu wants to fill the streets with the sound of Thangyat, satirical verse poking fun at the government – once an inseparable part of the festival but banned for decades by the military junta. But how will she revive an art form she has never heard? (New Year New Burma – ABC, Australia). Born in 1917, Ella Ruzicka, lives in Prague. After the Second World War, a young Danish woman marries a wealthy Czech and goes to live with him in Prague. But a year later the Communists seize power. He is sent to Slovakia. She stays behind, alone with three children. The two of them were never reunited. That is the story I came to make. But when I go to visit Ella one last time, one more interview to get the details of her lost love, she suddenly changes her story completely. It furthermore turns into a bitter tale of betrayal and fear. The remarkable fate of one person, but also the story of millions of people in Eastern Europe: the repression, the lying, spying … and the fear and reluctance to tell the full, true story (Ella from Prague – Radio24syv, Denmark). Grisha, based on Katja Kettu’s short story, plays in a blatantly modern way with the fates of two young Finnish women and Rasputin in early twentieth century Russia. Marissa and Anna have left Finland for St. Petersburg, for the big world, to work and party. While there, the women meet a charismatic prophet, Grigori Rasputin. Freedom and adventure are nowhere to be seen in pre-revolutionary St. Petersburg....only manipulation, subjection and possessiveness, mingled with love and infatuation in a nightmarish labyrinth (Grisha – YLE, Finland). It has been one year now since a Moscow-backed referendum led the Crimean peninsula, virtually a Ukrainian Island, to merge with the Russian Federation; an annexation deemed illegal by the international community. ‘New rules’ were enforced by the Russian authorities with surpising efficiency and speed, regulations affecting every aspect of daily life in Crimea - changing clocks to Moscow Standard Time was only just the start. Meantime, only a few Crimeans dare make a stand by refusing Russian citizenship... at their own peril (Crimea under Russian Rule – Radio France, France). On April 1st 1941, Easter Day, a peaceful but huge crowd of unarmed people from several villages, carrying a white flag and religious symbols, walked together as one towards the new SovietRomanian border. Rumours were circulating the Soviets would now permit crossing into Romania. At the border, they were cautioned to stop by Soviet troops; a warning apparently ignored, prompting the border guards to open fire... This programme looks back at this moment, better known as the Romania’s Kathyn TV COMPETITION who finally bring the war to an end. It is however an uneasy peace that collapses when the Russian troops arrive. Both superpowers claim Tannbach for themselves in this miniature version of the dawn of the Cold War (Line of Separation – ZDF, Germany). Marking the end of the British campaign in Helmand, a feature length documentary tells the story of the Afghan war through the words and pictures of the soldiers who fought it and took their video cameras into battle, recording the war as only they could see it (Our War: Goodbye Afghanistan – BBC, United Kingdom). Târgu Mureş, Romania is where a gory conflict broke out between Romanians and Hungarians shortly after the 1989 fall of communism. 25 years have passed and a lot of people still think the two ethnic groups form parallel communities in the city, striving to get on without each other and rarely, if ever, getting in touch. A documentary focuses on those Today and Yesterday’s Conflicts T he story of the conspiracy to kill Spanish Prime Minister General Juan Prim. Following the 1868 Revolution of Cadiz, the supporters of the different candidates to the Spanish throne began clashing with one another and also to confront favouring a Republic, all within the context of an increasingly tense political climate. The search for a King throughout Europe unleashed the Franco-Prussian War. General Prim became a common enemy by pledging his support for the candidacy of Amadeo, Duke of Aosta of the House of Savoy (Prim, Murder in Calle del Turco – RTVE, Spain). Spring 1945. In Tannbach, a fanatical band of Nazi soldiers stages one last murderous attack on their fellow citizens before the arrival of the Americans, 17 living in mixed marriages (Transylvanian (Love) Stories – TVR, Romania). Artistic expression can help overcome the experience of human participation in a war. The testimony, in the first person, is from members of the AFDA (Association of the Disabled from Armed Forces) that staged the show, also performed by Balleteatro dance students. In the year marking the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War, Casa da Música in Porto, in cooperation with disabled servicemen from the former colonial Portuguese Army presented a musical on war (Curado – Art and War – RTP, Portugal). A dramatisation of one of the most exciting stories from the Second World War – the Nazis’ efforts to develop an atom bomb and the Allies’ desperate struggle to prevent it from happening. One of the dramatic high points of the series is the daring sabotage mission to blow up the heavy water factory in the Norwegian Mountains in 1943 (The Heavy Water War – NRK, Norway). A WW2 story of Jewish artists who struggle with wartime reality by the only means available to them: music, theatre and film. They defend themselves from Nazi repression with humour, cabaret, shows, skits, performances, songs as well as concerts organized in the concentration camps and ghettos all around Europe. They fight for their lives, but most importantly, they fight for their souls and their dignity (The Cabaret of Death – TVP, Poland). August 1918, Canadian troops took part in a spectacular incursion into German territory. The fighting took place in the tiny village of Hallu. Almost a century later a fourteen year old boy made an astonishing discovery: he found eight sets of remains. What followed was a long identification investigation by scientists, historians, a genealogist, and the families of the soldiers themselves. Through all this the families learn about their history (In the Fabien’s Garden – CBC/SRC, Canada). The children of Syria are often the forgotten 18 victims in the on-going civil war. More than eleven thousand children have been killed and over a million are now refugees. Syria’s largest city, Aleppo, has become engulfed by fighting between pro and anti-regime groups and over two thousand children have been killed there. Schools have shut, food is in serious shortage and there is the constant threat of shelling, sniper fire and kidnapping. Against this stark backdrop, Marcel Mettelsiefen spent nine months filming the moving story of five young children whose lives have been changed forever by the war in Syria (Children on the Frontline – Channel 4 – United Kingdom). Political, Economic and Social Issues Taro Tomihiro is a successful sales manager who has devoted his entire life to work. However, at the age of 58, he decides to leave his company under Japan’s early retirement programme. Taro has been dreaming up a plan to use his retirement package to buy an RV, but his wife rejects the idea and his daughter suggests that he goes back to work. Although Taro tries to find a new job, he discovers that entering the job market is far more difficult than he imagined and visiting an employment agency only makes him realise how few marketable skills he has. As a result, Taro’s physical and mental health slowly begin to deteriorate (Finding Life after 55 - Episode 1: the Camping Car – NHK, Japan). Thousands of refugees risk their lives every year to reach the EU. Only a minority is permitted legal entry and the majority is forced to make deals. This documentary presents exclusive insights into the workings of the smugglers by documenting how a group of men is being brought across the border to Bulgaria from Istanbul (ZDFzeit: Risky Journey - Europe and the Refugees – ZDF, Germany). 1989 – Miklós Németh, Hungary’s new prime minister, decides to remove the expensive border control apparatus from the state budget. However, Nemeth’s decision has set him up against formidable adversaries and communist hardliners. A young East German couple is caught up in the political power game: the young man is finally shot dead at the border. This tragic event paradoxically accelerates Nemeth’s final decision to open up the borders. Soon after, the Berlin Wall falls (1989 – A Statesman Opens up – ZDF, Germany). Fall 1974, French President Valery Giscard d’Estaing puts his Health Minister, Simone Veil, in charge of a daunting task : to carry the abortion lax. Over three days, she will defend her text before parliamentarians with exemplary tenacity. Diane, a young journalist, makes it the subject of her first investigation, and discovers during her investigation a considerable change in women’s social status (The Law – France 2, France). The year is 1949, and Hungary has once again descended into darkness. Now in total control of the country, Mátyás Rákosi obeys his Soviet masters and prepares to stage the most spectacular show trial the country has ever seen. A production on such a scale not only requires scriptwriters and actors, but also cameramen and directors (Cinema Inferno – MTVA, Hungary). A documentary pretends to be the travel notebook that the main character, Clara, gives to Philip on his 25th birthday which coincides with the anniversary of the fall of the wall. It has been made with animation techniques to recreate the wall and help viewers understand what the place was like, where it was built. Inphografics are also included to describe some of the most tragic moments of its history (The Night of Berlin – RTVE, Spain). Belgian journalist Phara de Aguirre travels across the world to meet people who sought asylum in Belgium, but were sent back to their country of origin. In the first episode Phara travels to Kosovo to meet the Berisha family. They came to Belgium in 2007, tried to obtain Belgian papers, but were returned to Kosovo in 2013 (Exit Belgium – VRT, Belgium). Ne Me Quitte Pas is a Belgian drama about life on the brink of society in all its beauty, modesty and irony. The authenticity of the main characters is painful and confronting, yet entertaining and utterly charming. It is a story about mortality in a place where time seems to stand still (Ne me quitte pas – NPO, The Netherlands). August 16th, 1958. Two Hungarian immigrants break into the Hungarian embassy in Bern and take the ambassador hostage. A tense hostage drama, packed with plot twists, plays out behind the closed doors of the embassy. The screenplay by Norbert Köbli is based on a true story about the aftermath of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution (The Ambassador to Bern – MTVA, Hungary). Desperate for a male heir, Henry VIII wishes to have his marriage to Katherine of Aragon annulled. When Cardinal Wolsey fails to deliver this annulment, he is dismissed as Lord Chancellor. Wolsey’s sole hope of returning to the King’s favour lies in the ever loyal Thomas Cromwell, who manoeuvres a Bill through Parliament recognising Henry as head of the Church of England, thereby enabling Henry to marry Anne Boleyn (Wolf Hall – BBC, United Kingdom). June 5th, 2013, the first revelations arising from the documents provided by ex-NSA Employee Edward Snowden were published in “The Guardian”. His documents exposed top-secret United States and British government mass surveillance programmes so that the 29-year old computer specialist became the ‘USA’s public enemy number one’, turning him into a major pawn on the chessboard of international politics. After applying for asylum in 20 countries, it is Russia’s Putin who comes to his rescue (Snowden’s Great Escape – DR, Denmark). Charles J Haughey remains the most compelling figure of modern Irish politics. There are many reasons for this, not least his charisma, the 19 grandiose lifestyle, the sense that here was a politician of enormous potential with vision and extraordinary ambition not just for himself, but for his country. That at least was how his supporters regarded him. Others saw something else. Although many adored him, just as many were suspicious of his motives and the source of his wealth (Charlie – RTÉ, Ireland). A new television theatrical production about Jan Karski aired on Polish TV Program 2 in mid-December 2014, as part of its centennial celebrations. The show included several levels of narrative with a story about two young people rushing to create a docu-fiction about Karski and a story of Karski’s life during World War II (Jan Karski – TVP, Poland). The rich and explosive story of the decline of the British Empire and the birth of modern India. It is the summer of 1932 and India dreams of Independence, but the British are clinging to power. In the foothills of the Himalayas stands Simla, a little England where every summer the British power-brokers of this nation are posted to govern during the summer months. At the heart of Simla’s society is Cynthia, in her 60s, widowed, doyenne of the Royal Club. Her influence spreads throughout the community (Indian Summers – Channel 4, United Kingdom). Through the entwined lives of a successful journalist, a former bodyguard turned parliamentarian, an enriched society reporter and a former anti-Communist, we are thrust into the brutal and terrifying reality of today’s Bulgaria. Gueorgui Balabanov’s unbiased, yet indulgent lens focuses on these tragic comic stories danced by the country’s new capitalist élite, resulting in a grotesque portrayal of Bulgaria today. But this film not merely depicts a country adrift, but sketches an entire contemporary world rocked by doubts and by the end of utopias (And the Party goes on and on – Arte France, France). As peace is declared after the American Revolution, slavers go to New York in search of runaway slaves. 20 Aminata is offered a job by the British Navy to help recruit Black Loyalists to join them in Canada as free citizens. Aminata registers thousands in The Book Of Negroes (The Book of Negroes – Episode 4 – CBC/SRC, Canada). Rainer Voss was one of Germany’s leading investment bankers. Daily, he made exorbitantly high profits. Now he is sitting in an abandoned bank in downtown Frankfurt and, for the first time, talks. Publicly and without frills he is letting us look behind the facades and mechanisms of diligently sealed off system (Master of the Universe – ARD, Germany). France: the world’s heroin sanctuary, a paradise for the Mafia, a drug-trafficking hub set against a background of internal police wars, clandestine labs and yé-yé pop music. This was the era of the French Connection, with its Corsican godfathers, Marseilles gangsters, turncoats, informers, oldschool cops and thousands dead from overdoses on American sidewalks. A mythical tale, worthy of a film noir. How did Marseilles become the unconditional supplier of heroin to the United States? (French Connection – France 3, France ). Inelet is a hamlet in a Reservation. Nothing changes, except what nature does. But they vote in Inelet. It is the only moment when our Europe, a comfortable one, climbs to reach them. After that quiet returns to Inelet. No doctors, no stores, no electricity. It’s the best place for a fugue…(Book a Fugue – TVR, Romania). Yvan Sorel runs a MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) club in Marseille’s “Quartier nord”, a district in the city. Day after day, all on his own, with no support from the state, which gave up on this area a long time ago, he fights to keep the children and teenagers on the right path. A film about violence, education, moral values, faith and dignity (Spartiates – SRG SSR, Switzerland). A story of an American football team in Poland and the friendship of its three main characters, Krzysztof, Sebastian and Marcin, all members of the Seahawks Gdynia team, brought together by the passion they share. There are many things that divide them, but playing together lifts these very barriers (Unstoppables – HBOE, Pan-European Broadcasters). Stories of Friendship and Love 13 seniors, each of them with their own hopes, desires, conflicts and problems. What unites them is the longing for intimacy to escape their loneliness. They opt for speed dating, an event at which each man and each woman have seven minutes to get to know each other and bravely open themselves to a stranger of the opposite sex (Autumn Tingles – Speed Dating for Silver Hairs – ARD, Germany). Venice 1944. Max is a Hebrew student, his family has been deported. He lives hidden, but does not want to escape since he deeply loves Hélène, daughter of the French honorary consul, a Nazi and antiSemitic. When Max is arrested, Hélène decides to follow him.....(Max and Hélène – RAI, Italy). Juliet Capulet was raised hating the Montagues. Romeo Montague, twenty years old, the leader and the heir of his house, has little doubts about his life, but after he meets Juliet’s eyes he finally finds something that’s worth fighting for: his love. To save their new found love the two young lovers will face overwhelming odds. At the end, only Romeo and Juliet’s tragic death will move their families to understand how foolish their hate was (Romeo and Juliet – Mediaset/RTI, Italy). A frustrated 40-year old, Vera, stuck in a rut, is obsessed with the idea she will never fall in love again and will never live “la vie en rose”. Therefore she listens with both her heart and her soul to predictions revealed by Turkish coffee grounds that she will indeed meet her Mr. Right….(Panic – RTVSLO, Slovenia). Stories of Young and Women The story of three adventurers in search of the history of the Vespa: Italy! The three men stop at interesting sightseeing spots, they savour the local culture as well as the local cuisine. At least, that’s their intention…They’re accompanied and assisted by their fixer Haldis, who more than once gets them into trouble. So, the journey takes quite a lot longer and the adventures turn out differently than expected (The Biker Boys – VRT, Belgium). Amsterdam 1945. Otto Frank is back from Auschwitz. He survived the Holocaust, but his beloved family did not. Otto Frank’s secretary had kept his daughter’s diary, notebooks and a rich collection of loose leaves where Anne describes the bans that make life almost impossible for Jews in Amsterdam and elsewhere. She reports the flight of the Frank family, her difficult relationship with her mother Edith and the stricken community in hiding in Prinsengracht 263. Otto begins to transcribe the diary. On doing this, Otto Frank has to come to terms with just how little he knew about his daughter Anne (My Daughter Anne Frank – ARD, Germany). Jongbun is an old woman who lives hand to mouth by knitting, and she is still haunted by her old memories. In 1944, she was living with her mother and little brother Jonggil. They were stricken with poverty brought on by Japanese exploitation. Jongbun and Yeongae met on the train to Manchuria, destined to become “comfort women” for the Japanese military. Jongbun and Yeongae became friends and helped each other through a life which was worse than hell. With the war coming to an end, they finally found a chance to escape from the comfort women camp (Snowy Path – KBS, South Korea). We did it on a song is a social documentary and off-beat musical that tells the turbulent yet poetic tale of a gang of 17 year olds in a French city hard hit by the 21 economic crisis. The ideas for the songs sprung from the teenagers themselves and brought into being by the production team who created the text, music and images. In the songs, the harsh reality expressed in the text gives way to magic, humour and dreams (We did it on a Song – France 2, France). Isabel remembers her parents, Amélia and Joaquim. The story begins in 1923 in Carrazeda de Ansiães, a small northern village, with the marriage of Amélia and Joaquim, a poor farmer. Nine months later, Isabel is born. In 1939, Joaquim buys a house in Porto. Amélia and Isabel fall in love with the city. But Joaquim starts causing problems for his family… (April Women – RTP, Portugal). Pinja was just six years old when she was taken into care, due to the drug abuse of her mother, Carita. While living with her foster family, Pinja’s connection to her mother was broken. That was until Pinja herself started using intoxicants. Through speed Pinja was able to reconnect with her mother. A strong bond of friendship formed between mother and daughter, while Pinja spent her teenage years in a fog, in the company of her mother. In her twenties, Pinja decides she wants to start a new life, and goes into rehab. But how will her mother react to this? (Drug Diaries – YLE, Finland). Vivi Ferrari – a stunning Andrea Jonasson – is a diva. In every sense of the word: whimsical, passionate, always over the top. Above all, she is someone loathed to surrendering to the passage of time. Her deteriorating health compels her daughter, Alexis to move her to a nursing home in Switzerland and this now looks like the end of the road for our drama queen. However... the show must go on… (Old Fools – SRG SSR, Switzerland). Twenty one years after the death of Rai Journalist Ilaria Alpi, a programme attempts to answer the many questions still open surrounding the case. The in-depth analysis of a large amount of recently declassified material, 22 especially secret service info and uncut video filmed during Ilaria Alpi’s trips to Somalia, has enabled light to be thrown on the murder of the journalist and her Cameraman Miran Hrovatin. What was the secret Ilaria Alpi discovered that cannot be told? (Ilaria Alpi – The Final Journey – RAI, Italy). The lives, thoughts and everyday routine of Pakistan’s women. A reportage filmed between KPK, a northern province located on the border with Afghanistan, and Islamabad, throwing light on the changes and challenges faced daily by these women. They move like shadows in the torrid Asian summer and if they leave home, it is always accompanied by a man. Domestic violence figures in Pakistan rank among the highest in the world, where arranged marriages are frequent and the burqa is the rule. However inside the social fabric characterised by diktats and familism, some women nonetheless manage to carve out a life for themselves (Laila and the Other Women – SMRTV, Republic of San Marino). In the Western world, a woman is not allowed to age, she is supposed to be beautiful, wrinkle-free and vibrant. In this film we meet five ladies who live in one of Ljubljana’s homes for the elderly. Despite their venerable age they love life, even though they merely observe the outside world from a chair by the window. Modern society treats the elderly as redundant relics of the past, who have nothing left but to wait for death. However, their love of life is so stunning as to makes us think (Hindsight – RTVSLO, Slovenia). Stories of Families A drama series about being a family at a time when every traditional family pattern underwent radical changes. Signe, the daughter given up for adoption, has inherited Grönnegaard. Gro and Frederik are in Thailand trying to help out their jailed brother Emil. Frederik has however his own agenda when visiting Emil in jail. Frederik and Gro get into a serious fight. Thomas is paid a visit by his young girlfriend Isa, who has come to pick up their newborn baby, Melody, Signe´s work in the fields is being challenged by nature and finances while also posing a serious threat to Signe´s vision about farming (The Legacy II – DR, Denmark). After 25 years of absence, Joris returns to Horizonville the land of his youth, to honour the memory of his father who died one year ago. He lands in the middle of a tinderbox: his childhood rival, Raymond Héritier, wants to buy the service station of his father, Virgil. In deciding to stay, Joris will unleash an uncontrollable series of events and force him to confront the demons of his past (Station Horizon – SRG SSR, Switzerland). Incessant rain falls on Zagreb. That day Janko finally decides to take the threads of his life in his own hands. For him this means, above all else, an attempt to establish a relationship with Iva who he has wanted to approach for some time followed by dealing with his aging father Franjo. Iva and Franjo have their own secrets they don’t want to keep to themselves and also ideas of how this rainy day should go. Someone should, in the end, walk the dog (Walk the Dog – HRT, Croatia). Four scouts drowned, along with the young man who tried to save them. The investigation uncovers unforgivable mistakes and negligence by the staff of the fundamentalist and radical Catholic association run by the Priest Vialard. Two women, mothers who lost their children in the tragedy, decide to take the matter to court, something that brings them closer together (In the name of the sons – France 3, France). A drama series with a touch of humour, follows the lives of two families from Zagreb at the beginning of the 1980s. Their daily adventures are intertwined with social events, rituals and habits of that time. This series is a living image of Zagreb in the “new age”, with its concerts, parties, rock bands, youth magazine newsrooms, cult bars and rock clubs where trends were formed and from where the generation somewhat naively looked towards a “better future” (Black and White World, episode 3 – Women and Men – HRT, Croatia). The story of two couples from opposite social and cultural backgrounds, who could not be more different. Katarina and Frank have been living together for years. They are still in love, yet cannot stand each other. They invite over their neighbours, Jenna and Thomas, who have just had a child. An evening during which the sham, taboos, masks fall one after the other (Demons – Arte France, France). Mikko is a father of three and happily married. But he is also the son of a drunk. His father’s alcoholism has been present throughout his life, and indeed still continues to be. Raised as the son of a drunk is a different kind of growing up: the children of an alcoholic must be adults for their own parents. The children bear the shame, cover-ups, anger, the keeping up of facades, the inferiority, over-niceness… What happens when they themselves become adults? (Childhood Messages in a Bottle – Episode 1/6 – YLE, Finland). Fokke Augustinus is a sharp forensic psychiatrist, working with the criminally insane. He suffers from severe father-issues and his inability to communicate with the ones dearest to him is costing him his family. In a bold move to give his marriage one last chance, he moves his family to the farm he has inherited from his father, where he grew up and from which he fled long ago: Holland’s Hope (Holland’s Hope – NPO, The Netherlands). Letting small children for adoption to other people is always a risk, especially when the new “parents” are foreigners. The story begun in 90’s, when an American couple arrived in Poland to adopt five siblings. Soon after the adoption trial verdict, the children landed in the suburbs of St. Louis. Then, the 40 year old woman suddenly became pregnant – and the Browns started to get rid of 23 their legally adopted children… the dream of a better life overseas turned into a nightmare (The Promise of a Happy Childhood – TVP, Poland). Toto (10) and his sisters, Andrea (14) and Ana (17), are waiting for their mother to come back home on release from prison. A convicted drug dealer, she has been sentenced to seven years for her crimes, leaving her three children to fend for themselves, supposedly in the care of her brothers, themselves drug dealers and addicts. As they grow up, each learns how to survive on their own, hoping that when their mother returns the family will be reunited (Toto and his sisters – HBOE, Paneuropean broadcasters). into a blazing inferno after a runaway train exploded in the town centre. Immobilized and left unattended, the train had somehow started moving and by the time it reached Lac-Mégantic it was travelling at over 100 km/ h. Forty seven of the town’s residents perished, trapped by the flames. A documentary follows the scientific and technical investigation of the Transportation Safety Board of Canada into one of the worst railway disasters in Canadian history (LacMégantic: Enquête sur une catastrophe – CBC/ SRC, Canada). News Stories Built 450 years ago, Valletta has changed its entrance no less than four times. Now, for the fifth, World-famous Architect Renzo Piano has provided the city with an entrance that bestows dignity to the past whilst looking to the future. Comprising the old Opera House ruins and a new Parliament Building, the project has attracted both admiration and controversy. As Valletta prepares itself to tell its own story as European Capital of Culture 2018, the making of this project is as intriguing as its legacy (Valletta – The City of Colors – PBS, Malta). A programme about one of the most bizarre moments in Danish art history: The Hellene Movement. In the 1890s the later well-known manufacturer, Gunnar Sadolin, decided to found a summer camp for young artists out on Røsnæs at Kalundborg. Inspired by ancient Greece, Sadolin and his male colleagues painted and exercised outdoors in God-created nature…preferably without a shred of clothing. Among the first Danish vitalist the Hellene Movement caused an uproar, a scandal at the time, while Gunnar Sadolin is today considered the first Danish vitalist artist (The Rebels of the Art History: the Naked Hellene (1894-1902) – DR, Denmark). A new TV programme which marries science and modern- The Zodiac Murders series does not aspire to rank among other popular crime serials; it seeks to become altogether new, modern. The leitmotif is the signs of the zodiac. Each of the twelve episodes deals with a mysterious crime, featuring characteristics associated with the respective sign (No Prize for the Winner – The Zodiac Murders – CTV, Czech Republic). Seven years after the mystical disappearance of her daughter Josefin, police investigator Eva Thörnblad is still trying to cope with the grief of her own loss. Josefin was said to have drowned, but Eva has a feeling she is still alive. When a young boy goes missing in the same forest, Eva decides to return to her hometown of Silverhöjd to investigate whether the boy’s disappearance is related to her missing daughter (Jordskott – SVT, Sweden). At least 67 people were killed, more than 200 injured when the Westgate Mall in Nairobi was attacked by four terrorists on 21 September 2013. One of the terrorists was from a small, quiet town on the coast in Norway. His name was Hassan Dhuhulow and this film tells the story of his life (Portrait of a Mall Terrorist – NRK, Norway). On July 6th 2013, Lac-Mégantic was suddenly transformed 24 Art day technology with local art through the rigorous and painstaking work of the restorer. The audience will be able to learn about the fascinating processes of art restoration, discover some of Malta’s finest works of art and learn about the science behind the methods used to bring the aged pieces back to their former glory (The Science of Art – PBS, Malta). Tove Jansson became world famous for her books about the Moomins, but her artistry was so much more than the good-natured creatures that have captured the hearts of both children and adults the world over. Jansson was a versatile and prolific artist and author, who above all considered herself a painter. With her multifaceted life’s work, Jansson became one of the key artists in Finnish visual art during the post-war golden age of Modernism (Escape from the Moomin Valley – YLE, Finland). Other Forms of Art: Literature and Entertainment The Saitama Gold Theatre is an unusual theatrical troupe of professional elderly actors. Led by internationally renowned Theatre Director Yukio Ninagawa, the actors’ average age is 75. In 2014, they began preparing for a major performance at the prestigious Theatre de la Ville in Paris. This programme looks at the inner strengths of people who strive to stay young at heart and live their lives to the fullest (Applause! Yukio Ninagawa and his Senior Troupe – NHK, Japan). A tribute to Eduardo De Filippo on the 30th anniversary of his death. Moreover, the question is also put to those who worked with Eduardo, who lived with him on and off the stage as well as to those who had related to him. Exclusive interviews are aimed at delving into the universal bearing of his works. Sand animations by “sand artist” Gabriella Compagnone are a reminder of the Edwardian soul and theatrical spirit, since sand drawings, just like theatrical performance, vanish from sight but linger in our hearts (What makes Eduardo Eduardo? – TV2000, Italy). A 6-episode documentary series broaches, via a theatrical treatment of authentic stories, the subject of political power in the past, which affected people’s private lives using practices of the communist governments’ secret police. Nine people - nonactors, nine authentic stories in the section devoted to Germany. A former student of theology, a convinced socialist, a teacher who refused to cooperate with the Stasi, a man who jailed because he failed to inform about his friends preparing to take flight ... including an unofficial Stasi collaborator, working for this organization for twenty five years (Parallel Lives - Part 3: Catharsis – RTVS, Slovakia). Astrid Lindgren’s books have sold 150 million copies and she is one of the world’s ten most widely-read authors. Astrid Lindgren was born in 1907 and grew up in a small town in rural Sweden. Throughout her life she bears traces of a secret which she turns into stories about strong girls and lonely boys. She became Astrid to a whole nation, an icon to a whole world. A female pioneer, who influenced both politics and the public debate, Astrid Lindgren taught us respect for the children and was an activist against war, racism and nuclear power (Astrid Lindgren – SVT, Sweden). A documentary commissioned to mark RTÉ’s 2015 celebration of poetry. This visually-rich film roller-coasters through the history of poetry in Ireland, from the earliest times to the present day. It charts via performance, interview, animation, archive and dramatic reconstruction the central role that poetry and poets have played in the story of Ireland (A Rebel Act: Poems That Shaped Ireland – RTÉ, Ireland). The story of three extraordinary brothers who grew up in a deprived neighbourhood in Vienna, 25 Austria and their rapid rise to world fame as handstand artists in the 1950s and ‘60s. The Carsony Brother’s one-arm handstands on walking canes, champagne bottles or bowling balls, with a dazzling sprinkle of charm and humour, were a world sensation. A moving film about life’s great ambitions and dreams that come true (The Carsony Brothers – From Vienna to Las Vegas – ORF, Austria). A multicomponent public television project that is building a comprehensive video resource on the Complete Plays of William Shakespeare – for television, online and educational use. The series explores the text and the context of Shakespeare’s plays in programmes presented by some of the world’s most legendary actors and directors (Shakespeare uncovered: series 2 – CPB/PBS, USA). Other Forms of Art: Cinema, Photography Irena Blühová (1904 -1991) is the first photographer who in the early years of the CzechRepublic took pictures of the countryside and villagers in the post-feudal Slovakia of the 20’s. In 1933, she was also the first in Slovakia to photograph a male nude. Irena Blühová was also the first member of the City Council, the first Slovak student at the Bauhaus! ... the first bookseller, while she also smuggled Austrian and Hungarian communists persecuted by the fascists (The First One: Irena Blühová – RTVS, Slovakia). Hockney is the definitive exploration of one of the most significant artists of his generation. For the first time, David Hockney has permitted access to his personal archive of photographs and film, resulting in an unparalleled visual diary of a long life (Hockney – BBC, United Kingdom). 26 Other Forms of Art: Music and Dance Virgilio Sieni, born in 1957, has been a star of Italian contemporary dance since the early ‘80s. He is the director of the Venice Dance Biennial. An internationally famous choreographer and dancer, trained in both classical and contemporary dance initially in Amsterdam, then in New York and Tokyo, Virgilio Sieni has also studied the visual arts, architecture and martial arts. RAI 5 has dedicated to Sieni a 2-hour programme. The show was divided into three distinct sections, recorded in February 2014 at Cango - Cantieri Goldonetta in Florence (Spring Exercises – RAI, Italy). The film offers viewers an insight into the family life of the famous Czech Composer Antonín Dvorák. His wife Anna gave him nine children and created a perfect creative environment for him. Nevertheless Dvoøák’s muse and secret, unfulfilled love was her sister, Countess and Actress Josefina Kounicová (The American Letters – CTV, Czech Republic). A programme that looks at dance from the perspective of feet and their shoes as a way of touching on technique, physiology, pain and pleasure, history, symbols, intention, fetishism, psychoanalysis, fashion, etc. This exploration of the foot’s many aspects gives us the freedom to tackle every conceivable dance form, from classical to post-modern, from African to hip-hop, from gumboot to Flamenco, from contemporary dance to cabaret or jazz (Let’s dance! Clap your feet – Arte France, France). Czech Choreographer Jiří Kylián has been living and working in the Netherlands since 1968, and it is difficult to imagine the world of international modern dance without him. In 2013 he bade farewell to the Nederlands Dans Theater with the restaging of his bestknown choreographies: Vanishing Twin, Tar and Feathers and Claude Pascal. The programme follows this remarkable project from the very outset and rehearsals right through to the final performance. Kylián stands onstage, waving to his audience for the very last time (Jiří Kylián – CTV, Czech Republic). The Toots Sessions is a music project of VRT in which Flemish artists get the chance to show their music in a different way and in an intimate and unique setting. Studio Toots is a professional recording studio at the Belgian public broadcast service. In this episode the young band “Oscar and the Wolf” plays 5 songs, including a cover of the nineties hit ‘Freed from Desire’ (The Toots Sessions 2014: Oscar & the Wolf – VRT, Belgium). Classica HD offers an insight into a musical institution which is not solely a straightforward school, but the dream of a great musician come true. Founded by Violist Piero Farulli in 1974, a member of the legendary Quartetto Italiano, the Music School of Fiesola has for the past forty years been a major international keystone. A bedrock of teaching which, since its foundation, has offered an alternative to conservative systems, placing emphasis on the value of playing together as a formative experience for pupils from the very outset of their studies (Playing together – Classica HD, Italy). An unforgettable night to honour the city of light in the world famous Musée d’Orsay! Internationally renowned opera singers such as Felicity Lott, Anne Catherine Gillet, Magali Léger, Julien Behr, Benjamin Bernheim, Vannina Santoni sing arias, French ‘chansons’, As well as both classical and popular tunes that capture the best of that effervescent and inimitable city, Paris! (Paris Celebrates – France 3, France). Portrait of the Flemish-Moroccan choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, one of the most versatile and successful dance artists of our times. The documentary follows him as he travels all over Europe. As the film observes him creating and performing widely different styles of dance, he talks in an interior monologue about what lies behind his irrepressible urge to dance (The Need to Dance - NPO, The Netherlands). The Concert de Paris, free of charge and in the open air in front of the Eiffel Tower, has attracted the biggest names on the opera scene in a demanding and unifying musical programme. Many artists agreed to be there along with 220 musicians and choral artists from the French National orchestra to celebrate 14th July, Bastille Day or French National Day. The musical programme was created by Daniele Gatti around a strong theme of War and Peace in 2014, as we marked the centenary of the First World War (The Concert of Paris 2014 – France 2, France). A musical documentary presenting the Fukushima Kodály Choir’s passion for Hungarian culture and music through the work and personality of their founder, Furiya Miyako. A programme depicting the Fukushima nuclear disaster and subsequent recovery through the personal struggles and tragedies of the singers themselves. Our cameras visit the venues where tragedy struck together with the choristers and offers an insight into their daily lives (Pentatom – MTVA, Hungary). Jill Johnson is Sweden’s biggest country music star. In each episode of the series she invites a Swedish artist to Nashville, USA, to perform a song together with her. But apart from the music, every episode also highlights a social theme, like racism in country music, homophobia or poverty. In the second episode the traditionalist and conservative Nashville is truly tested, when Swedish lesbian feminist Kakan (”Cookie”) Hermansson comes to town (Jill’s Porch, Nashville – SVT, Sweden). Born in 2004, it is set to be one of the most significant musical events in the Republic of San Marino. The high number of applications, the outstanding quality of the participants from all over the world, the distinguished jury and the rich prize money makes it one of the most prestigious Piano 27 Competitions in the world. The 6th edition took place in September 2014 and the winner was the young Russian pianist Alexei Melnikov (International Piano Competition Republic of San Marino – SMRTV, Republic of San Marino). On Saturday 29th March 2014, same-sex marriage became legal in England and Wales and Channel 4 marked this historic milestone by offering viewers front row seats at one of the first gay weddings. But this is an extraordinary ceremony in more ways than one. Grooms Benjamin Till and Nathan Taylor are writing and staging their entire wedding as a musical – with sung vows, sung readings and show-stopping ensembles featuring the whole congregation of family, friends and special guests, songs from some very special surprise guest stars and showbiz legends (Our Gay Wedding: The Musical – Channel 4, United Kingdom). Enzo Cosimi’s Heat, first staged in 1982, was discovered by Theatre Critic Giuseppe Bartolucci. With its strikingly penetrating insight into the energy of youth, Heat is a groundbreaking work performed by Cosimi together with his three non-dancer friends. Thirty years on from its debut, Heat has been revived thanks to the Enzo Cosimi Company and the performance of four electrifying young dancers (Heat – Classica HD, Italy). Science (and a Touch of Science Fiction), Medicine A Japanese youth with severe autism wrote a book of essays entitled The Reason I Jump. Authored by Naoki Higashida, it reveals the inner heart of an autistic person and became an international bestseller, translated into over 20 languages. This success is due to author David Mitchell, who has himself an autistic son. David felt that his own son was speaking to him through Naoki’s words, providing insight into such behaviour as head banging and 28 uncontrolled vocalisation. He translated the essays into English to help other families around the world who grapple with autism (What You Taught Me about My Son – NHK, Japan). Here is one man living in a dystopian world. Traumatized as a young child, it was difficult for him to deal with his childhood trauma so he created another personality to cope with his pain! But the split personality turns out to have splintered into a third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh. He quietly seeks medical help and is diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder (Kill Me, Heal Me – MBC, South Korea). The Department of Time is a secret and independent government body that is directly attached to the Prime Minister’s Office. The passage to other ages is through a series of gates that are monitored by the Ministry’s Patrols. Their objective: to detect any intrusion and prevent any culprit from the past travelling to the present - or vice versa - in order to use history to their own advantage (The Department of Time – RTVE, Spain). Peoples, Religion and Traditions The Little Company of Mary came to Korea 50 years ago and opened the Calvary Clinic, the first hospice in Korea and in Asia. The Little Company of Mary is known as Blue Veil, an order that serves to be a friend to those who are dying. The nuns spend time with people facing death (Moments with the Blue Veils – KBS, South Korea). A story suspended between nature and poetry, to learn more about the people of Lampedusa and the distinguishing traits of their vocation to welcome visitors. The personal stories, intertwined with the setting of this extraordinary island and sea, are narrated by the director, and by renowned writer Erri De Luca. These stories develop into a journey crossing places of sorrow, tormented landings, endless waiting… but also joy, rescue and hope. It is a short film about encounter, on recognising and opening up to others – to the stranger and to diversity – overcoming all fears (LampeduSani – TV2000, Italy). Given the size and the number of people, as well as its natural and cultural UNESCO-protected sites, Croatia is one of the world’s top nations. On the other hand, a look at the credibility and morality of Croatian politicians and it probably lies at the very bottom. This situation plunges Croatia from potentially being an orderly and cultural country to the depth of hypocrisy, corruption and a lengthy stagnation (Utopia – HRT, Croatia). Love and marriage is definitely the hottest issue among young women since time immemorial. This historical, romantic comedy TV film attempts a twist in the well-known Korean fairy tales, by assuming that the heroines of those stories were actually friends and spinsters (Spinster Diaries – MBC, South Korea). Ralph van der Zijden grew up in Holland, in The Hague. He studied sociology and international relations in Amsterdam. Working for the Dutch government, he started working in this region in international politics. He frequently visited Belgrade, Zagreb and Sarajevo and in time became very fond of Belgrade. In 2011 he founded the tourist agency “I Bike Belgrade”, organising bike tours through Belgrade for foreign tourists (A Foreigner in Serbia – SBC/RTS, Serbia). Lives in search of fortune. An approximation to the Chinese community living in Portugal which gives voice to the experience of being Chinese in this country, the difficulties, frustrations and expectations. Although the Portuguese and Chinese are very close and share the same territorial space, the same society, they don’t know each other (We the Chinese – RTP, Portugal). Third, fourth and fifth generation Korean-Russians set off on a great motor journey from Moscow, bound for their homeland. Travelling a path first traced 150 years ago, they journey 15,000 km, crossing three Central Asian states and, for the first time in history, even the Korean Military Demarcation Line. Young generations of Korean-Russians today visit this divided homeland, imagining an unified home country (Breaking Inter-Korean Barriers: a Great Journey to the Motherland in 150 Years – MBC, South Korea). Sister Laura Girotto, a 70 years-old Salesian from Turin, Italy, has been in Adwa, in the North of Ethiopia, since 1994. In this town, in the Tigray region, she has built a self-sufficient mission, including a school attended by 1,500 children and teens. Its students, though very poor, top national merit rankings. In only 20 years this nun has transformed Adwa, focusing on the promotion of women and the adoption at a distance. Her latest challenge is the construction of a new hospital to replace the Italian hospital, the fruit of colonialism (Adwa’ s Mother – TV2000, Italy). Often humorous, always moving, a programme explores life, death and the afterlife. It’s the story of Glasnevin Cemetery - Ireland’s national necropolis. The film has been seen by 1 out of 10 people in Ireland, trended #1 on Twitter during its broadcast on RTÉ & was voted Best Irish Film of 2014 by the readers of The Irish Times’. As a direct result of the film, Glasnevin Cemetery & Museum has reported an 87% increase in visitor numbers (One Million Dubliners – RTÉ, Ireland) A programme speaks of yesteryear through the memories of those who wrote those chapters in history living it. ‘Amarcord’ aims to rebuild a sort of common memory, to create a TV choral tale put together by the over 75s. This episode running in the competition features only women, their childhood memories and their struggles to bear the hardship of yore (I Remember San Marino and its Surroundings – SMRTV, Republic of San Marino). 29 WEB COMPETITION Trends: Trans-Media and Crowd-Sourced Projects I f the Internet has so pervasively entered our lives, it is because web projects have today broken free from the chains of the traditional website that had been designed for desktop computer surfing. Our Web Competition has for several years been featuring the very latest examples of innovation – fully trans-medial products spanning online, on traditional broadcasting platforms, even in books, newspapers, comic books, posters, exhibitions and other events. Many of these are participatory projects, succeeding in actively involving local or broader communities – sometimes even tens of thousands of people. DR (Denmark) is a veteran of big trans-media participated projects: having already won 3 awards in the last three editions of our Competition, it this year presents Next Stop Home, a project connecting more than 30 million passengers annually travelling two bus company routes in Denmark. Next Stop Home spans among others on social media, radio, web-TV, screens inside buses and stations, the Metro Express newspaper. RTBF (Belgium) presents another project firmly rooted in everyday city life: Phone Booth Stories celebrates the symbolic, emotional and cultural value of telephone booths, just when this very service in Belgium has been permanently stopped. From a survey of cabins that still in use and from many members of the public, this project yielded a web documentary, radio and social media campaigns, printed fictions …. resulting in a complete crossmedia exploration. And speaking of daily life in urban environments, mention must also made of 100 Voices, a crowd-sourced project from VRT (Belgium), to be described 30 in greater detail later. The Eurovision Song Contest this year was co-produced by ORF (Austria) and the final in Vienna registered a record audience and number of connected countries. The web coverage of one of the biggest musical (and TV) hits of the year turned out to be a global media event, with hundreds of thousands of interactions during every phase of the competition, culminating with the #BuildingBridges social campaign. Sometimes, however, a cross-media project, rather than being planned in advance, gradually develops from an initial successful idea, On a Plate by RNZ (New Zealand) being a typical example. Starting from a simple plate of animated comic, and thanks to the extraordinary early success and highlights on BoingBoing, Reddit and Huffington Post, it has ballooned online into an extraordinary cross-media cultural debate. The examples mentioned so far refer to trans-media projects related to social issues, cultural and current affairs. But a trans-media success can also derive from a fictional story. This is precisely the case of the Anarchy campaign by France Télévisions (France) which created a rich trans-medial universe spanning from the web to TV, to a weekly column on Le Monde, developing a science fiction story about the collapse of French society in the wake of an economic crisis. The narrative has been fueled not only by novelists, but also by journalists and analysts elaborating plausible plots based on online user suggestions. Finally, Face your Fears by SRG SSR (Switzerland) is a journey into the universe of fears, both personal and universal, deep or shallow. Starting from the examples given by famous authors such as George RR Martin or HR Giger, the project invites us to share our fears and leave testimony, as part of a cathartic process in the universality of fear. Trends: Gamification User interaction is one of the most distinctive features of the online experience. Over the years the possibilities of interaction have evolved and refined: without a shadow of doubt the new frontier today is … gaming. About a third of the projects in competition features some sort of game action. One example is Blowback by HTW Berlin (Germany), which splits in two parts: a radio science fiction drama set in a future dominated by water shortage, and a mystery game that enables interaction with the characters from the story in a sophisticated experimental 3D soundscape. But also other projects – The Last Hours of Laura K by BBC (United Kingdom), Corto Maltese by France Télévisions (France) – are present as real online games, and in many more gaming interaction is still a key element. A game may allow you to explore the options in the life of an ex-convict (The Man with the Harpoon, RTBF, Belgium), to delve into the historical tradition of your country (A History of South-West Germany, ARD, Germany), to discover the science to come (Bistro in Vitro, Submarine Channel, The Netherlands), and indeed much, much more. We will examine in more detail these and other projects, dividing them according to theme. We have to list here two more projects where gaming and user interaction go beyond merely choosing options, and instead determine the development of the storytelling itself. This is the case of the aforementioned Anarchy (France Télévisions, France), an example of trans-media narrative where the results of the collective choices from users guide the course of a TV miniseries. A similar experiment, currently in progress, is I’ll Be You Be Me (RAI, Italy, part of the platform RAY, also in competition): a game / competition where teenage girls create characters inspired by their own stories and dreams, due to be selected in the webseries. These two projects are still currently experimental, but are expected to anticipate narrative and production strategies growing from strength to strength in the next few years. Trends: Web-Series and Spin-off from TV Series The Web Competition does not have a category specifically intended for the web-series: however this year there are running in the competition several web-series examples, provided that they feature a rich trans-media experience and / or complex online story-telling, fitting into either category the competition. RTBF (Belgium) presents two interesting examples from its portfolio of productions: Uh captures with freshness and irony the indecision and lack of horizons facing a thirty-something generation, who just can’t emerge from adolescence. Typical pictures the adventures of a group of Belgian students with traits of grotesque surrealism. Also SVT projects (Sweden) are devoted to exploring the universe of young people: Doorcode 1525 follows the soapy rhythm of the story of a couple of teenage girls, best friends, working to define their personality interspersed with love affairs and complex, sometimes tragic family rollercoaster of emotions. Boobs to the Wall tackles current issues and social criticism from the humorous, feminist point of view of the Kronlöfs sisters, authors and performers. Besides “canonical” web-series, the Web Competition showcases some other examples of a trans-media spin-off of existing TV series, companion, online games and other bonuses which have become a significant part of the classic TV series experience. In addition to the already mentioned Anarchy 31 (France Télévisions, France) and I’ll Be You Be Me (RAI, Italy), and besides the case of Unit 9 – The Webdocumentary (CBC/SRC, Canada) which will be described later, the Web Competition offers several other examples of this established trend. ARD (Germany) presents Blackout, a special Tatort+ instalment celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Lena Odenthal character from the popular crime series: this project is a detective story-like online game featuring dozens of video footage and hundreds of photos from the archives of the series, along with new material produced for the occasion. Dina Foxx - Deadly Contact (ZDF, Germany) is a sequel to the famous and award-winning Wer Rettet Dina Foxx? (2011, already in competition at the Prix Italia), one of the first major cross-media productions. This new episode takes up and expands the prototype: a TV movie flanked by a companion web-series, an online game / interactive video. A New Day (YLE, Finland) is a successful example of natively cross-media comedy, where the TV series is supported by a wide range of online interactivity offering: users can follow the adventures of the fictional town of Virtaus on the radio, the website, social media platforms .Their interactive contributions results in a mix of real and fictional storytelling, creating a unique and compelling narrative universe. Finally, RAI (Italy) presents its new online platform RAY, entirely dedicated to the development of trans-media TV fiction. It is a hybrid between a experimental lab seeking new ways in serial storytelling, and a onestop-shop portal for the fans (especially the youngster) of RAI TV series, where you can find both companion and spin-offs of existing series, plus new web-series, live streaming from the sets, games and many other opportunities for interaction. 32 Trends: Web-Documentaries, Web-Reportages Almost half of the projects in competition come with the typical structure of a webdocumentary / web-reportage, or something very similar. Topics may range from ARD (Germany) historical documentaries (A History of South-West Germany, The Wall, The Oktoberfest Attack), to investigative reports from Internazionale (Italy) (The Dark Side of the Italian Tomato) and to Submarine Channel (The Netherlands) (Refugee Republic, Who Are The Champions); from travel notebook literature (Dreaming along the Trans-Siberian by SRG SSR, Switzerland) to scientific matters (Life on Us by Arte France, France). We will address in detail each of these projects and the many other web-documentaries in competition, dividing them by theme. But it is worth highlighting the great proliferation of the genre. Web documentary is arguably the online media format where broadcasters’ creativity, inn ovation and productive skills have most improved in recent years. On top of the flexibility and rich expressive palette of the traditional documentary film, the webdoc has proved able to seamlessly integrate itself into the new ecosystem of the web, embracing all the trans-media potential in a more complete and consistent manner, when compared to, for example, online serial fiction. Modern web-documentaries, such as those in competition this year, are mature and complex products mastering technologies and narrative outcomes: they are open to exploration, effortlessly integrating video, photos, drawings, texts, music, interaction, games, social media sharing. Themes: The Web that We Gaze at, the Web that Gazes Us back After a few years of absence from the Web Competition, the theme of the Internet per se, with its rules and mechanisms, is a hot topic again. The main reason is the big debate about privacy and online safety, recently brought to the fore by some sensational news stories. Do Not Track is a web-documentary by Arte France (France), addressing the issue of collecting and processing personal data, a practice that has became more and more invasive, but also more and more necessary for the development of the web economy. As a demonstration, each episode of the documentary gathers some user data, and uses it to personalise the viewing experience. A scenario even more disturbing is investigated by Netwars / Out of CTRL, a web documentary and online game presented by ZDF (Germany), which addresses the issue of Internet security and hacking. An enigmatic merchant of secret information guides us to understand what is a cyber attack, the market of illegally obtained information, the risks to personal and global security. In Limbo also addresses the issue of personal information on the web, however, reversing the point of view: this Arte France (France) interactive movie poses the question of what remains of our life stories and personalities, once they have been split up and mingled with the millions of others on the web – and how we appear as seen from the point of view of our own data, which form the “brain” of the Internet. The website collects information from our social media profiles, and integrates them into the narrative and the images of the film in real time, leading us in a sensory and poetic journey through the collective memory of the network. Also The Last Hours of Laura K (BBC, United Kingdom) is based on the idea that we always leave digital traces and every moment of our life is recorded: this builds for a compelling interactive mystery drama. We can rummage in the last 24 hours in the life of Laura Kitchens: a steady stream of footage from surveillance cameras, telephone calls, text messages, activity on social networks; a huge amount of material often meaningless, repetitive, boring just like normal everyday life - except that Laura K was murdered, and only by retracing her last hours alive we may find the culprit. RAI’s (Italy) proposal is also based on the themes of the Internet: Connected Grandparents is a web-series inspired by coaching programmes like “Dog Whisperer” or “Hell’s Kitchen”. In each episode, a grandchild asks a coach to help him connect their grandparents to the Internet, showing them how the web m ensure a more active social life. Themes: The World Far Away, the World Nearby One great power of radio and TV is in that they put us in contact with the world far away: they bring into our homes dramatic images from all over the planet, issues apparently unrelated with our daily lives, yet deeply interwoven. The global scope of the web further amplifies this magnifying effect, stimulating us with a proliferation of reportages and documentaries, raising awareness on a larger scale. Our Web Competition showcases many examples of how the web can be used today to better inform people. The Dark Side of the Italian Tomato (Internazionale, Italy) looks like a classic reportage: an exploration of the perverse aspects of the economy of Italian tomato, a flagship of made-in-Italy but also a product to export below cost to the same countries from which many African workers come, illegally 33 as they are exploited toiling in Italy’s fields. Submarine Channel (The Netherlands) presents two examples of trans-media reportage. Refugee Republic tells the daily lives of Syrian refugees in the camp of Domiz, Iraq, through a mix of drawings, videos, photographs, sound and text. Conceived as a tour guide with many planned routes, the project allows to interactively explore the camp, meet its people and learn about their stories. Who are the Champions is a web documentary exploring the economic, social and cultural legacy that the World Cup has left with the people living in the host cities. By browsing the 36 interviews gathered in Rio de Janeiro (2014), Johannesburg (2010) and Leipzig (2008), we can take a different look at all that precedes, accompanies and follows the famous football games we all watched on TV. ZDF (Germany) presents Last Hijack, an online version of a documentary delving into the phenomenon of piracy off the Somali coast, from the point of view of a real pirate. This project, by mixing documentary sequences and scenes recreated in graphic animation, features unique testimonies, telling the story of the pirates’ families, digging into the economy that leads to the acts of piracy, analyzing how the mythology of the pirate has evolved in Somali society. Finally, two very different projects offer good examples of the “world far away” becoming part of our societies and cultures. Retrospect: War, Family, Afghanistan by ABC (Australia) reports on the impact of the Afghanistan war on Australian society through the story of six veterans and their families, gathering an interactive archive of memories on the longest war in which Australia has ever been involved. 100 Voices by VRT (Belgium) portraits testimonies by ordinary Muslim people living in Belgium. 100 Voices leaves no room for recriminations, justifications and ideologies: it mirrors the life of immigrants in a European country, their daily stories narrated by them and 34 made available without filters, in a wall of video clips growing higher every day. Themes: Politics, News, Current Affairs Many projects are this year dedicated to current issues and live reportages: journalistic covering of events, dossiers on major issues, and so on. They have usually (but not always!) grown quickly, springing from the need to report about something happening right now, on the moment - yet in these projects we recognize many specific elements of modern online communication at its best, in particular the power of the web to connect people with topics of immediate interest to them, to inform, raise awareness and promote action. Three competing projects are devoted to election coverage in different countries. The main goal of RNZ (New Zealand) when dealing with the 2015 elections in New Zealand was to stimulate debate and encourage participation of young people – therefore its Election 2015 coverage has developed mainly on “The Wireless” web platform aimed at young people, and has spread across many related initiatives on the web. A young and radical approach is that of Debattle, an app by Sveriges Radio (Sweden) that allows you to pick from among the political slogans from the Swedish election campaign, and transform them into “rappers battles” with custom back beats. Finally, YLE (Finland) presents Candidate Gallery, an effort to map the 1,800+ candidates in the Finnish elections in a neutral and uniform way, recording short video interviews based on 35 pre-defined questions. A test enables us to answer the very same questions, and verify how far our political views stand from those of the selected candidates. Three projects deal with the daily coverage of events of particular interest and resonance in their respective countries. In Belgium, The Jonathan Jacob Case is the court proceedings concerning a young man, who had been arrested under the influence of drugs, to then die in unclear circumstances while in the custody of the local police. This webdocumentary by VRT (Belgium) reviews the events that led to the trial, which is still ongoing. Phillip Smith flight and return (RNZ, New Zealand) is the story of the daring escape of a convict, found guilty of murder and child abuse, which triggered a manhunt on a global scale, resulting in his arrest in Brazil, but also in a heated national debate about security measures. Liliane, quite simply (Radio France, France) is an interactive portrait of Liliane Bettencourt, presented in the form of a comic strip. The project, a collaboration between a news editor and a designer, tells the story of the richest person in France, caught up in the heart of a family, political and judicial scandal. The website has been online since the beginning of the trial. Finally, two projects are dedicated to exploring the hidden world of prisons and the reintegration of ex-prisoners into society. The man with the Harpoon is a web spin-off from the homonym documentary series by RTBF (Belgium): a serious game that puts the visitor in Alan’s shoes – at 45, sentenced to 14 years for attempted murder, currently released on parole, struggling with a problematic reintegration while attempting at the same time to help what remains of his family, and also regain his dignity. Unit 9 – The Webdocumentary showcases interviews with 13 women prisoners and ex-prisoners. This project by CBC / SRC (Canada) is an rare example of a documentary spin-off adapted from a fiction TV series set in a women’s prison. For fans of the TV series, the web-documentary adds depth to the fictional universe they already know well, detailing true data and facts about women in prison. But the spin-off can also be followed by a wider audience, as proven by its extraordinary success (which has in turn generated a new TV version of the web-documentary). Themes: History A few projects in competition deal with historical subjects, especially issues of recent and contemporary history. The centenary of the First World War inspired the making of some significant products. The trans-media coverage of the celebrations by RTÉ (Ireland), World War 1, 100 Years, is an example of how a Public Service Broadcaster may put itself at the heart of the national debate about the legacy of the Great War and the impact it left on Irish society. Anzac 2015 Coverage by RNZ (New Zealand) is focused on how the disastrous Gallipoli campaign impacted the Army and the people of both Australia and New Zealand - an opportunity to remember how the War left deep scars also far off from the European front. The Notebook of Songs by Radio France (France) is a collection of war songs never before recorded, sung by the soldiers at the front or popular at the time among civilians in the rear, that French radio has discovered and published through a philological study; a new recording and website hosting also a large amount of documentary material. Footballers United, web docu-fiction by BBC (United Kingdom), tackles the subject from a different angle: it is the story of a team of famous Scottish players who left their promising careers to fight at the front – a portrait of the Edinburgh society as the War broke out, spurred by the need to support the British in a conflict they nevertheless at the same time felt extraneous. Among the 35 proposals not directly related to the First World War is the ARD (Germany) portfolio which this year features three projects of historical subject. A History of South-West Germany is a web-documentary and an interactive game in six parts, where we can explore several different moments in German history since the Middle Ages, reviving them from the point of view of a hypothetical character of that period. The Oktoberfest Attack is a web-documentary collecting archival documents, records and evidence from prosecution, about the terrorist attack of 1980, responsibility for which has yet to be fully clarified. The online reportage offers the opportunity to explore one of the darkest moments in recent German history, and possibly contribute to a journalistic investigation that has been in progress for more than 30 years. Finally, The Wall is a trans-media project to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, which consists of a TV show and an interactive web-documentary. The Japanese Family by NHK (Japan) also presents an indepth study into the recent history of a country, on the occasion of the anniversary of the end of World War II. Through photos and diaries, the project summarises the story of a single family over the last 70 years. As generations pass, we witness the evolution of Japanese society, while recalling the greatest moments in the history of the country. A similar project is HERO.CZ: taking inspiration from the 70th anniversary of the Second World War, but also the 600th anniversary of the death at the stake of religious reformer Jan Hus. This project by CZCR (Czech Republic) questions the myth of “national heroes”, and how exemplary figures shape the character of a nation. Another project focusing on the collective memory of a country, Voices from the Past is a mobile app designed by PR (Poland) on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of its founding. The app provides an extensive archive from the Polish radio audio 36 recordings and allows, thanks to geolocation, to listen to the relevant testimonies depending on the places you are visiting, along different routes you may choose from. Finally, the collective memory of a nation, but this time set in the recent past, also provides the basis for the aforementioned web-documentary Retrospect: War, Family, Afghanistan by ABC (Australia). Themes: Science and Popular Science Three projects address issues of scientific interest with a popular approach and original results. Life on Us is the latest product from the rich portfolio of Arte France (France) scientific documentaries: stemming from the television documentary of the same name, it is presented as a futuristic travel agency offering trips inside the human body. The approach to science of Life on Venus (SRG SSR, Switzerland) is humorous, demystifying and character-driven, typical of a web-series. In each episode, the main character, a physics student, faces a different scientific theme, and explains it in simple terms, taking inspiration from her everyday life. Finally, Bistro in Vitro by Submarine Channel (The Netherlands) is a virtual restaurant where we can order only 100% artificial foods that do not yet exist, but that science will soon make possible thanks to advances in laboratory techniques. Scientists, experts and chefs offer us glimpses from the future, inviting us to reflect on the ethical implications. Themes: Continuity of Culture The Web has its own way of presenting cultural issues (and also the so-called high culture) in a diffuse, liquid form that highlights the continuity with space and time which we live in, with our consumption patterns, with different formats, content, media: stories that are also places, trips that are also books, comics to be explored like games, literary labyrinths made of images and sounds. Cultures without Transition is a radio / web documentary by Radio France (France) that explores a few symbolic places in French culture, from the Marseille’s Alcazar, scene of performances by Charles Trenet to the Piscine Molitor dear to Boris Vian, showing their changes and the deep impact they have left on the collective memory. Radio France (France) also presents Continuidad, a reinterpretation of the classic Cortázar Continuidad de los Parques, whose cyclic and non-linear structure is often regarded as a model of web storytelling before its time. In this version, a musical score, also cyclical and potentially infinite, accompanies the reading, enriched with images, drawings and an innovative user interface. France Télévisions (France) presents another classic “reinvented” for the Web: in Corto Maltese: Secrets of Venice, once again we are fascinated by the magic of Hugo Pratt’s Venice. But this time the web transforms the comic book masterpiece into a peculiar form of interactive game, where exploration and surprise from unexpected discovery become a first-hand experience. Another reinterpretation of a classic is Dreaming along the TransSiberian by SRG SSR (Switzerland): a trip from Moscow to Ulan Bator enjoying the company of interviews, musical themes, background sounds, images and readings, inspired by the centenary of Blaise Cendrars’ La Prose du Transsibérien. Finally, another famous centenary is celebrated by Dylan Thomas Digital Season: a gigantic collection of digitized archive material from the BBC (United Kingdom) tracking the life and work of Dylan Thomas, whose close collaboration with the English Public Radio made him undoubtedly one of the first genuinely crossmedia literary geniuses. Themes: Music This year, two projects deal with musical themes, and they are both of exceptional scope and ambition. The first is the aforementioned coverage of the Eurovision Song Contest, presented by ORF (Austria) just a few days after the closing of the final. The second is Radio 2 Top 2000 (NPO, The Netherlands), a ranking of 2,000 musical songs voted by the public and transmitted on the second channel of the Dutch radio during the Christmas holidays. Online participation is wide-ranging: in addition to the traditional tools of interaction, the live broadcast from the Top 2000 Café Hilversum can also be followed by means of a virtual tour via Oculus Rift. The Top 2000 reaches more than 70% of the Dutch public, and has become a “transmedia Christmas tradition”. SPECIAL PRIZE EXPO MILANO 2015 Reserved for Prix Italia members Hunger, Globalisation and Environmental Sustainability T he power exercised by banks and finance over natural resources (Banking Nature – Arte France, France). Individual and collective initiatives are gathering momentum around the world to face and cope with the continual acceleration of our lifestyles (The Invisible (R)evolutions – Arte France, France). The effective need for genetically modified crops and their impact on the environment (The Propaganda War Over GM Crops – ARD, Germany). The problems of sustainable fishing for tuna and the overfishing 37 of Dorado (Malta: Tuna or Dorado – PBS, Malta). Globalisation, desertification and Land Grab, GMO: the many faces of hunger (Hunger! – ZDF, Germany). Food in all its Sauces In a cookery school to “extract” every concept of physics hidden within, from the most complex and profound to those that are more simple and intuitive (The Universe is a Free Meal! – RAI, Italy). The old salt route that strengthened the bond uniting man and the earth’s produce and, above all, a meeting between different people and cultures (On the Ancient Salt Route – SMRTV, Republic of San Marino). Two old friends travel across Spain to investigate gastronomy and scenery, to enjoy the diversity founded firmly on Spain’s common roots (A Country Worth Eating – RTVE, Spain). Moving through southern Europe to get to know food and the different use that is made of it from one Mediterranean country to the next (Food Planet – RTVE, Spain). The Importance of Water Water scarcity threatens billions of people worldwide, in developing countries and as well in rich nations (Thirst! – ZDF, Germany). The Mediterranean: discovering how our food cycle is being hit by fish arriving from one of the most polluted seas in the world (Presa diretta – Save the Sea – RAI, Italy). With the efficient use of water in Malta a real problem, this docu-mag presents the experience and the fight of a couple of farmers and the technologies for water sustainability to reduce water consumption and improve rationalization (Watering an Island – PBS, Malta). Children, between the age of 8 to 12, are made aware of problems afflicting our environment, such as the 38 plastic soups in the oceans, as well as possible ways to avert ecological disaster (Zapp Your Planet – NPO, The Netherlands). GOLDEN AWARD FOR NEW RADIO FORMATS Competition open to every new player on the digital scene The Sound, the Voice A bizarre trip inside the brain of Producer Tim Hinman, as he does his best to follow the pathways of cognition to the source – only to be confronted with a stranger and stranger inner universe (In One Ear and Out the Other – ABC, Australia). Radio Producer and Sound Lover Belinda Lopez, who stumbled on a YouTube on ASMR Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response) interviews a number of top international video makers, ASMR experts (Inaudible Me – Belinda Lopez, Australia). Do Automated Voices Have a Soul? Nicolas Guadagno dreams up a world where automated voices go off the rails, revolt and express themselves (Total Vocal – Arte France, Francia). Recorded in several locations in Belgrade and edited in a studio in Belgrade. The idea was to analyse recorded speech from a musical angle, convert it to a series of musical notes, and then use it as a starting point for a music composition (Play It with Your Voice – SBC/RTS, Serbia). Sound Walks The main topic is mirrored in the dramatization and the dramatis personae: instead of a presenter there is an audio guide, operated by a female character, who navigates through an array of audio files. On the Ö1 website users can navigate through an audio gallery showing the custodians in front of their choice painting. (Pictures of an Exhibition – ORF, Austria). A sonic immersion in the Brussels district of St. Gilles during a soundwalk (Play Babel – Anna Raimondo, Belgium). We travel with Susanna Sommer to a little fishing village in Thailand, all alone – except for a suitcase packed with voices (The Voyage into the Unknown – DR, Denmark). This sound documentary was recorded around the 26th North Parallel considered a “Red Zone” by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs because of problems linked to narcotrafficking to be then edited, sculpted, mixed in Paris (Silent Zone – Amandine Casadamont and Angelique Tibau, France). Recorded in June, 2013 in Kinshasa, this audio documentary opens its microphone and speaks with people in the working-class districts of the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (My Village is Called Kinshasa – La Fabrique Documentaire, France). The three parts of the trilogy “Radiotelegraph”, “Night Fall”, and” Relay” explore landscapes experienced in solitude and isolation, and the descent into darkness for the long northern winter night, featuring the village of Seyðisfjörður, East Iceland (Trilogy for Night and Radio: Radiotelegraph, Night Fall, Relay Anna Friz and Konrad Korabiewski, Canada, Denmark, Iceland). An innovative sound portrait of Limerick, Ireland, taking the listener over 12 themed episodes on an aural adventure (Limerick 2014: As It Lives & Breathes - Episode 1 Summer – Grey Heron Media, Ireland). Culture, Theatre A journey through the soundscape of a theatrical company in rehearsal: the word, gesture, music, dance, vocalisation, the sound of an idea taking form (Achilles and the Tortoise – Gianluca Stazi, Italy). In 1974 Dieter Roth wrote a play which got by on 176 pages with the use of a single word: “Mumble”. Pure Minimalism. Performance Artist Grace Yoon uses the remains of meaningless language and evolves a new universe from seven letters (“Mumbling” Adapted from the Play “Murmel, Murmel” by Dieter Roth – Grace Yoon, Germany). Orlando Furioso, betrayed but spirited, resolves to take action that risks provoking the wrath of environmentalists, but they probably would not have the courage to face such a raving lunatic (Lunatics in Literature – Giovanni Morandini, Italy). A multimedia format combining the live performing arts with the audio documentary for radio broadcasting. A theatre jam session. 7 rules given and no collective rehearsals (Absolutely Live – Roberta Nicolai, Italy). A radio art diptych depicting the brutalisation of war. The first part is a Holocaust commemoration, whilst the second is a portrait of the intense conflict in Gaza (The Savage Bull – RTÉ, Ireland). This poetic multimedia play is based on the dialogues spoken by characters in Strniša’s play The Unicorn, a work mirroring the author’s view of two worlds: the female main character is presented as innocence and arrogance, while the male takes his place in the world as a knight, old and a merrymaker (It Happened in a City That Didn’t Exist – RTVSLO, Slovenia). In 1776, America is at war with England and George Washington’s army has taken back Boston. But in the middle of this terrifying time, Abigail Adams, the future first lady of the United States, makes a fateful decision to travel to Boston and use a controversial new scientific technique to protect her five children against a threat more dangerous than an army of English Redcoats (No Inoculation Without Representation – Luke Quinton, USA). 39 Current Affairs, News, Interviews An interactive MNM project aimed at helping young, unemployed people find a job (The Biggest Employment Agency in the World – VRT, Belgium). A series of short radio documentaries in a campaign combatting loneliness. This series offers ten different perspectives on loneliness and a voice to those people not usually heard in society (The Silent Ones – Radiomedia RY, Finland). In 2001, the biggest cybercrime ever experienced by Israel reached the courts. The indictment included hacking, theft, impersonating federal employees, criminal conspiracy (The Badir Brothers – Sipur Israeli and Adam Bizansky, Israel). Mocku tells stories of ordinary people who once in a lifetime did something worth being told. Challenges, wars, loves, anecdotes, adventures. Mocku follows one only rule: not all the stories that are told are true – Laura Faggin and Paolo Corleoni, Italy). A new web newspaper, daily reviewing world news and edited by journalists Barbara Schiavulli and Alessia Cerantola. The style is simple and immediate, conceived as a way to keep track of the flux of the world events (20 November 2014 – News – Radio Bullets, Italy). The only Italian radio programme ever recorded live with a smartphone. Fiorello records his programme in a mysterious bar in the North of Rome, at dawn, along with friends, ordinary people plus a special guest every day (Fiorello at Radio Fuori Programma – RAI, Italy). More than 16 years ago, Joe Richman of Radio Diaries gave a group of young people tape recorders to report on their own lives for the NPR series, Teenage Diaries. In Teenage Diaries Revisited, some of those diarists return to chronicle their grown-up lives in a onehour special. A great deal has happened in 16 years (Teenage Diaries Revisited – Radio Diaries, USA). A serial radio show and podcast with an interleaved narrative. Scenes with 40 different correspondents fade in and out: young adults living in the city of San Francisco (Meet Sonic SF – Stacy Bond and Audioluxe, USA). A comedy programme about how Sweden actually feels. Something completely original, with a tough new attitude (Thor radio – Sveriges Radio P3, Sweden). Every Thursday, between 7 pm – 9 pm through DERP, 4 famous Turkish radio presenters meet listeners both live and simultaneously from stations based in Ankara, Istanbul and Izmir as if they were broadcast in the very same studio (The “Most” Radio Programme of the World – TRT FM, Turkey). Experimenting, Trans-Media How does one’s sense of reality fail when falling in love? Why do we sometimes find ourselves lost in dreams of the future, with someone we’ve met once or twice? An interesting documentary experiment (Movies in Your Head – Radiotopia’s The Heart, Canada). An interactive Radiogioco in 3D-Audio. A mystery-thriller in two versions: as a radio play and as a game app for mobile devices (39 – Audio Game in 3D Sound – ARD, Germany). a two-part trans-media project for radio and mobile devices: Blowback/ The Assignment and Blowback/The Search (Blowback – HTW Berlin, Germany). An attempt to present a road accident off Vestvejen (The West Road) in Denmark as a sound experience (The West Road – Maria Dønvang, Denmark). Margaux Chrétien is the captain of the French synchronized swimming team. Pain is her daily life; moving beyond pain is her specialty. A format composed of one part radiophonic and another visual dedicated to the fascinating photographs of the athlete (I Help My Body Out – Elsa Fayner, France). The sound of 75 mm cannon shells, that of 58 mm mortar shells, the whistling of bullets from Lebel rifles – what did the soldiers actually hear, during the First World War? An experiment consisting of sounds and original stereoscopic images (The Trench – Radio France, France). Take singer and storyteller Jarvis Cocker, add radio documentary producers, and a full symphony orchestra – and the result is a unique experiment in telling stories about music and the night, mixing prerecorded audio with live song and symphonic scores (Wireless Nights: BBC Philharmonic Presents ... – BBC, United Kingdom). This is a site-specific piece of live radio-art created in the remote Irish rural community of Kilfinane. The aesthetic purpose is to create a palpable psychological object through a distinctive and idiosyncratic radiophonic event (Fifth Sketch for Ascent and Descent – Resonance FM, United Kingdom). Short experimental radiophonic format based on the reasonable assumption that Beethoven was completely deaf, after years of suffering from Tinnitus (condition causing you to hear ringing or roaring sounds that only you can hear) when composing his 9th Symphony (Beethoven’s Tinnitus – Snezana Ristic and Radonja Leposavic, Serbia). Eintagsliebe, a German word meaning “one-day’s love” or, a “fling”. It can be analogous to the word mayfly, eintagsfliege. The mayfly sneaks in through an open window and lives her mayfly life to the fullest - perhaps even finding her true mayfly love. Before she knows it, death has overtaken her (The Hurricane – Mitra Kaboli, USA). An experimental audio narrative about a day in the life of a tarot hustler that takes an unexpected turn of events (Sacred Operator – Karen Robins, USA, Canada). An interactive audio tour that tells the true story of eight unsolved murders from the year 1885. Moving at their own pace and assisted by GPS-triggered narration, participants are led on an expedition that engages all the senses (The Year that Broke Austin – Radiolab, USA). At Picnic Radio original founder members of Jealousy Party, Roberta WJM Andreucci and Mat Pogo retraced their almost twenty year musical project. After selecting material from an archive of published and unreleased studio and live tracks, they decided the best way to tell their own story was to perform it live instead of giving it a chronological or archival slant (The Sound of Punca – Radio Picnic, Switzerland). Environment Talks, interviews and statements focusing on Macedonia’s first food cooperative in an informal group of people and households getting their organic products straight from producers (Good Soil, – Kanali03, Macedonia). 24 hours a day, Phaune Radio invites you to explore animality and its worlds of sounds, to travel ever closer to wild and imaginary biotopes (Polyphaune #6: Courtship Display – Phaune Radio, France). Part 2 of a three-part series which looks at the fascinating history and natural history of the North Bull Island, home to over 1100 species of organisms including plants, insects, birds and mammals (An Irish Sanctuary – Part 2 – Near FM, Ireland). A radio and podcast mini-series about the changes facing the waterfront: the Pirate, Lu Olkowski meets one man who embodies the spirit of the fast-fading waterfront – Lu Olkowski, USA). The Power of Stories The journey of Yulu and two Arkurra, Giant Rainbow Serpents, as they brought the land into being for the Adnyamathanhas, an indegeneous Australian people (Yulu’s Coal – Liz Thompson, Australia). A sentimental, saccharine radio drama infested with a poetic, yet trashy virus called the Process, intermingling everything and wreaking havoc in the highly conventional maudlin universe of Pamela and John (Pamela – ACSR, Belgium). To give life is like accepting death, a symbolical death. For Katia, this death however turned out to be very real. A 41 documentary about birth and loss…intimate, delicate and fragile as the thread of life itself (Katia – Magali Schuermans, Belgium). In this special Valentine’s Day episode of WireTap, a woman jumps through hoops to find romance in a new video game (WireTap – The Dating Game – CBC/SRC, Canada). The story of a horologist living in Halifax, Nova Scotia who is the first person to tell you that time doesn’t exist (Dr. Clock – Veronica Simmonds, Canada). The surprising story of Amanda who one day discovers the true identity of the man she has fallen in love with and exactly who his friends and family really are (In a Relationship with … – Third Ear, Denmark). In “Genialos!” Professor Holger Bech Nielsen meets the uncrowned king of Denmark’s reality TV, Sidney Lee, who holds the unofficial Danish record for reality show appearances. It’s nothing less than the sound of two of the most peculiar particles in the universe colliding! (Genialos! – The Year in Review, 2014 – Radio24SYV, Denmark). This is the story of a box. A leather box that is over eighty years old. It contains over fifty 78 rpm recordings of classical music and opera hits of the day. This piece is about rekindling lost, and perhaps forgotten, sounds (A Box of 78s – Dinah Bird, France). A daily radio soap opera exploring 10 inner dramas from 5 Irish women and 5 Irish men. Each episode features one character from a small town visiting a young man in a coma (Coma – Maccana Teoranta, Ireland). The story of Enid and her incredible love for her son Angkor, who is born with Down’s syndrome (Love Syndrome – Israel Story. Mishi Harman, Israel). Michael and Leah have been together for 37 years, living in Moshav Mevo Modi’in, which has a population of just 252. The couple reflect back on their time together and also take a look forward at the uncertainties lying ahead in the future (Michael & Leah – Benny Becker, Israel). The portrait of 100 year old Beekeeper Wincenty Brycko is a simple story, 42 about his simple love for people, nature and God (Childhood Whispers – Fundacja Glos Ewangelii, Poland). The man on his way to welcome his first grandchild, without the wife who longed for just this moment; a man with a diamond ring in his pocket; the veteran with the war wounds that won’t heal and can’t be seen (Where Are You Going? – Loftus Media, United Kingdom). In 1977, a mild-mannered aeronautical engineer sideswiped a parked car in Compton, California. What happened next would torment him for the rest of his life (I’m about to Save Your Life – Criminal. A podcast, USA). As a child, Charles Farrell was a prodigious piano player living in a middle-class household. In this story, Farrell reflects on his life, the ethics of boxing, playing the piano and whether or not a hustler can ever truly change (Sesquipedalian – Love + Radio and Everything is, USA). While working at night in the wilds of the Marin Headlands, Baker Eduardo Morell witnesses the struggle between life and death. This struggle plays out all around us all the time, in ways both large and small (What the Baker Saw – Vanessa Lowe, USA). In a future dominated by AI’s, an invisible rogue planet on a perfect collision course with Earth catches everyone by surprise (Brad Lansky and the Rogue Era – Protophonic, South Africa). GOLDEN AWARD FOR INTERNATIONAL TV COPRODUCTIONS History and Culture A s peace is declared after the American Revolution, slavers go to New York in search of runaway slaves (The Book of Negroes – CBC/SRC, Canada). The life story of a great European: Václav Havel (Václav Havel- Living in Freedom – CTV, Czech Republic). A reconstruction of the day when Snowden bid to elude capture (Snowden’s Great Escape – DR, Denmark). Seventy years after the liberation of Auschwitz, our eight-part film about the annihilation of Europe’s Jews sets out to explore a story dating back to before the start of the 20th century (Annihilation The Destruction of Europe’s Jews ‘The End of Illusions’ (ep 1/8), ‘The Survivors’ (ep 6/8) – France 2, France). 100 years after its outbreak, this series lets viewers experience WWI solely through the eyes of those who lived through it (Diaries of the Great War-The Beginning – ARD, Germany). Tribute to Friedrich Dürrenmatt, the man, writer and painter (Friedrich Dürrenmatt – In Labyrinth – SRG SSR, Switzerland). A multicomponent public television project building a comprehensive video resource on the Complete Plays of William Shakespeare – for television, online and educational use (Shakespeare Uncovered: Series 2 – CPB/PBS, USA). feuding families: their love (Romeo and Juliet – Mediaset/RTI, Italy). The Beast, Prince Leon, scarred by hatred and fear is reborn thanks to the purity and courage of Bella Dubois (The Beauty and the Beast – RAI, Italy). Environment Nowadays, the effective use of water in Malta is a real problem. The struggle of a couple of farmers for water sustainability, reduce water consumption and improve rationalization (Watering an Island – PBS, Malta). A world where millions of tons of electronic waste is currently destroying the environment and jeopardising the lives of thousands of people in Africa and Asia (The E-waste Tragedy – RTVE, Spain). Thriller What first appears to be a series of brutal murders at the hands of a single perpetrator, soon turns out to be a much larger, more complex case (The Team – ZDF, Germany). Love Romeo and Juliet’s love find something worth fighting for, something setting them apart from the others and in particular their (By Ilia Amatuzio and Carla Teofani, with Marta L’Abbate and Riccardo Polignieri. Translation by Michael Barranger). 43 TV RADIOCORRIERE 43