FIAT/IFTA Award Winner 2006

Danmarks Radio succeeded in the worldwide unique Television Award of FIAT/IFTA.

Late on Monday night, October 30, 2006, Lone Leegaard, editor of Danmarks Radio, received the FIAT/IFTA Award from Edwin van Huis, President of FIAT/IFTA for her outstanding documentary "Knud Rasmussen, the great Danish Greenland explorer".

The Award ceremony took place in the "Casino de Madrid", one of the most beautiful places in the Spanish capital. The organizer of the Award, Karl Maier, pointed out that Lone Leegaard's win was a big success, because of the very strong competitors in this yearly competition.

Nominations

22 programmes have been nominated : Download the Nomination list 2006

Shortlisting

On 12th May, 2006, the Programme & Production Commission of FIAT/IFTA, representing the pre-jury of the FIAT Award, met in Vienna, Austria.
Year by year it becomes more difficult for the jury to select the three short-listed programmes for screening and afterwards voting for the Award winner. This year it was again very difficult, because lots of excellent contribution entries reached us. There were many nominations which would have been worth to be short-listed. The jury, however, had to decide, particularly under these aspects : best use of archive material, creativity and international appeal.
The three short-listed programmes are :

• Bob Dylan, no direction home. Directed by Martin Scorsese. Coproduction PBS (USA), BBC (UK), ...
• Knud Rasmussen, the great Danish Greenland explorer. Production Danmarks Radio
• Love Story. Wait a minute, Mr Postman. Production RTE (Ireland)

The citations

Bob Dylan, no direction home
Director : Martin Scorsese
Producers : Spitfire pictures, Grey Water Park productions, Thirteen/WNET New York and Sikelia productions, in co-production with Vulcan productions, BBC and NHK.
Bob Dylan, no direction home tells the fascinating story of the folk singer, the rock artist and the poet Bob Dylan between the years 1961-1966. The film takes us through a rare journey and a special look into the artist's creative process. Dylan's personal story reflects well the story of the outer circles of other artists and the society he lived in. The film reveals the story of a whole generation in the stormy sixties in the USA. It is a historical retrospective of crucial events in the modern American history, where Dylan became the center of a musical and cultural upheaval, the effects of which are still felt today.
80% of the two chapters film is made by treasures of film archives footage, some never seen performances and interviews with artists and musicians whose lives intertwined with Dylan's during that time. The skilful inspired and precise editing of that footage makes full use of previously unseen archive material, interwoven with and illuminated by more recent interviews with Dylan and others who were there. This is an excellent, exciting example of how archive films could come alive, reused in a creative way, bringing the past alive to the younger generations.
For all these reasons the pre-jury decided to nominate this film.

Knud Rasmussen, the great Danish Greenland explorer
Directed by Lone Leegard and Mads Baastrup
Production : Danmarks Radio
The programme is, in the first place, a portrait of the Danish polar explorer and author, Knud Rasmussen. The world's longest journey by dog sledge from Greenland to the Pacific made him worldfamous. But, more than that, it is a description of the disappearing culture of the Eskimo's, and the description of the relationship between Greenland and Denmark. His artic journeys had no pure scientific purpose. He didn't want to study snow and ice, he wanted to study people ! He made eskimo's his science and above all, he recorded them on film !
The material is so unique, so extraordinary that one forgets the, sometimes, damaged quality of the footage. One can enter into the spirit of the Eskimo world, through his footage and through his words. Not only he filmed a lot, but he kept extensive diaries, and a rich collection of photo's , several books about Eskimo life and scripts for filmproductions. All this material was also used as source for the programme.

Love Story. Wait a minute, Mr Postman
Directed by Karen McGrath
Production : RTÉ Archive Production Unit
Love Story. Wait a minute, Mr Postman, a 25 minutes feature film, is a brilliant example of how original entertaining and funny Black & White Archive film footage from the 1960s and 1970s can be used to look back at Irish social history.
The theme of the programme is "Love letters", once an universal means of communication, and the medium through which many budding romances flourished in those decades. Archie Raeside and his beloved Bernie were two sweethearts for whom love letters set the scene for their life long romance who provide us with one of these love stories.
Archie knew from the first moment he saw Bernie that she was the one for him. A fanatical cameraman he filmed everything around him from his sisters getting ready for dances to his first date with the love of his life, Bernie. Archie was called by the Irish Army to film their first UN peace keeping mission to the Congo. He filmed their last date before he left on his tour of duty. They corresponded daily by letter but during this six month period apart the letters brought Archie and Bernie closer together despite the miles. The evening he arrived home to Ireland, Archie proposed to Bernie.

The second story is that of Joan and Vincent. Their relationship began by letter, and when Joan confessed in one of her letters to Vincent that she had polio, Vincent felt encouraged to deepen their relationship and asked her for a full-length photograph. Joan understood by his request that "he was getting serious" and heard alarm bells. She didn't want to loose him. She put on the shortest mini-skirt she could find and posed for the photo that in the end would clinch their life-long romance.
Love Story is distinguished by its editing, the good combination of archive material to illustrate the story, accompanied by a suitable music soundtrack, and the newly filmed interviews with the couples telling their stories now.
The programme uses Archive from a variety of sources starting with letter writing Public Domain footage from the Prelinger Archive, suitable Archive from the RTÉ Libraries & Archives, footage of UN Irish Troops in the Congo sourced from the Irish Military Archive along with Archie's personal films to document and illustrate the story line.
Love Story takes a fresh slant on love using original Irish Archive footage to tell the tale.