FIAT/IFTA Awards 2003

The wonderful Colonial Palace in Tervuren, located not far from the centre of Brussels, was the marvellous location of the Award's Celebration 2003 on 9th of September. About 30 nominations had competed for the two Awards, The FIAT/IFTA Television Archive Award and the FIAT/IFTA New Media Award.

New media award

The winner of the New Media Award was elected by an international jury in Baden-Baden/Germany already in the middle of May 2003.

The winner : Stevie Miller of BBC Scotland, for his website Scotland on Film, showed an interesting multi-media collection of Scotland in the 20th centrury.

The representative of the British Embassy to Belgium, Mrs. Lucy Joyce, Head of the Press and Public Affairs Section and representing his Excellency, The Ambassador, Mr. Gavin Hewitt, was asked to handover the New Media Award 2003 to the winner.

Here is the proud winner with his colleague and Mrs Lucy Joyce :

Television Archive Award

The screening of the three short-listed programs of the Television Archive Award took place just two days before the celebration.

All delegates of FIAT/IFTA's annual conference were allowed to vote between:

• "Children of Nagasaki", produced by Atsunori Kawamura for the NHK Broadcasting Corporation, Japan
• "Heart of Dublin", produced by Sheila de Courcy for RTE Television, Ireland
• "Voices from the Silence", produced by Dmitry Lesnevsky for REN TV, Russia.

Television Archive Award winner was elected clearly : Mr. Dmitry Lesnevsky with "Voices from the Silence" for REN TV, Russia.

Unfortunately, the winner was not able to travel to Brussels to attend the Award Ceremony but The First Secretary of the Embassy of the Russian Federation to Brussels, Mr. Oleg Tsatsourine, represented the winner's country in a very good way.

In his speech, Karl Maier, organizer of the FIAT/IFTA Award, especially thanked the sponsor Tecmath and its President, Willi Krüger, for their support through 10 years of FIAT/IFTA Television Archive Award sponsoring. The FIAT/IFTA Executive Council decided to announce Willi Krüger as honorary member.

The celebration night was finished with the closing dinner.