CEREMONIAL PRESENTATION OF THE AWARDS FOR THE ONE WORLD FESTIVAL 2005
On Wednesday May 4th at 19:30, the ceremonial presentation of Awards for this year’s One World Festival took place in the large auditorium of the Municipal Library of Prague.

Presented first was the Rudolf Vrba Award which is received by the best film in the category Right-to-Know. This award is granted by a jury composed not of filmmakers but of people whose fates represent today’s human rights and social problems. The members of the Rudolf Vrba Jury - Ales Bialacki, Gheorghe Briceag, Mirvari Gehramanli, Hanna Khodas and Jarmila Kuchárová - gave the Rudolf Vrba Award to the film Death in Gaza by James Miller.

In addition to the main prize, the jury also felt strongly about two other films in this category and decided to award two honorable mentions: The first honorable mention was given to Johann Feindt and Tamara Trampe for the film White Ravens - Nightmare in Chechnya. The second honorable mention was given to the film Rwanda: History of a Genocide by Raphaël Glucksmann, David Hazan and Pierre Mezerette.

This was followed by the presentation of the Czech Radio Award for the creative use of music and sound in a documentary film, which has been traditionally decided by a jury consisting of employees of Czech Radio. This year, the General Director of Czech Radio, Václav Kasík, gave the award to the film Odessa Odessaby Michale Boganim.

The Plzeňský Prazdroj Audience Award for the film which met with the most positive response among the visitors to One World was presented by the representative of our – already traditional – General Partner Plzenský Prazdroj, Michal Kacena, to the film The Source by the Czech director Martin Mareček.

In the Short Film Competition the Mayor of Prague Award was granted, which had been decided by a jury consisting of directors and dramaturges from several prestigious international documentary film festivals (Claas Danielsen – Germany, Jukka-Pekka Laakso – Finland, Tina Lokk – Estonia, Tine Fischer – Denmark and Illana Tsur – Izrael) and presented by the Deputy of the Mayor of Prague, Igor Němec. The Mayor of Prague Award was given to Gérard Désiré Nguele for the film Second Class. In addition to the main prize, the jury also gave honorable mention to the film Museum Piece by John Smith.

The Award for Best Director was chosen by members of the Main Jury (Don Edkins – South Africa, Nikolaus Geyrhalter – Austria, Alena Müllerová – Czech Republic, Anand Patwardhan – India and Anna Glogowski – France). It was presented by the Marketing Manager of Czech Public Television, Martin Svehla, to two directors: Pirjo Honkasalo for the film Three Rooms of Melancholia and Ditsi Carolino for the film The Youngest. The members of the Main Jury also chose the Award for the Best Film. Last year, at the impulse of the organizers of One World, a tradition was established when this award was presented by Deputy of Minister of Culture of the Czech Republic, Petra Smolíková.

The Best Film of this year’s One World Festival went to My Beloved Child by Brit Jorunn Hundsnes.

A part of this evening also included the projection of the film My Beloved Child.

The jury also chose to give a special mention to the film The Source by Martin Mareček.
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Screenings of the awarded films
On Thursday, May 5th, following awarded films will be screened:

Odessa Odessa - Světozor Big Hall, 7.30 p.m. (English subtitles)

The Youngest - City Library Big Hall, 7.00 p.m.

Death in Gaza - Světozor Small Hall (English subtitles)

My Beloved Child - Světozor Big Hall, 9.30 p.m.

Deviľ's Miner awarded on Hot Docs Festival
Devil’s Miner, the film screened at the One World Festival in the Main Competition, has been awarded by the Fipresci Award for the Best First Documentary at the Hot Docs Festival in Toronto. The award is chosen by the International Federation of Film Critics. Co-director of the film, Richard Ladkani, will come to the One World Festival and will introduce his film to the audiance on the screening at Světozor Cinema on Wednesday, May 4th, at 9.30 p.m.
Another two films screened at One World Festival had been awarded at Hot Docs in Toronto: Sentenced to Marriage and The Wall had been awarded as exceptional documentaries in the Spotlight on Israel programme.

VIsitor's reaction to Tibor Kocsis' film New Eldorado
Hi Tibor,
after yesterday preview of New Eldorado and following discussion, I had to go through it again and simply revised some of my views of document. I finally believe: it is one of the best aspects of your document, that you were as objective as you could. That makes document real true story with showing that life is not black and white and life is not easy. Even if I wish, that the company were shown in worse light, even I wish, that instead of satisfied teacher there was someone who sold the house and found it later as a fault, but mistakenly only with the purpose to see it as I feel and think of the case (and consecutively feel good about it).
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Exhibition HIV/AIDS: Global Challenge, Global Responsibility
Multi-media exhibition HIV/AIDS: Global challenge, global responsibility has been opened on Thursday, April 28th in the Langhans Gallery Prague. The main parts of the exhibition are two photo collections. The first is entitled I still want to live, made by acclaimed Czech photographer Jan Šibík, holder of the World Press Photo Prize. The other collection, Aids in Zambia, includes photographs of the prominent Dutch photographer Geert van Kesteren. A series of Documentary films entitled Steps for the Future will be shown in the Langhans Gallery as a part of the exhibition. An exhibition of posters entitled Être – Pictures of Human Rights by the prestigious Parisian agency Magnum Photos is to be seen in the Langhans Gallery during the festival as well.

Photographic exhibition in Světozor Cinema
Photographs of prisoners‘ wives from the Cuban Spring, are exhibited in the Světozor Cinema. The exhibition called It is our problem as well lasts until May 5th. In the middle of March 2003, seventy-five representatives of the democratic opposition as well as independent newspaper journalists, librarians and human rights advocates were arrested in Cuba. Photographer Alexander Polo examines the lives of the family members of these prisoners of consciousness. They are often exposed to daily oppression and harassment from government offices; sometimes they even struggle against hostility within their own communities. It is not only the prisoners themselves, but also their family members who belong among the victims of this repression.

Statement of the Peacekeepers director Paul Cowan
I would like to sincerely thank the One World Festival for awarding The Peacekeepers its Vaclav Havel Award. While the film is, at times, harsh in both the portrait it paints of the Democratic Republic of Congo and of the inner workings of the United Nations, it is I feel optimistic. It shows that much of the world cares about even the most desperate of situations, even those where there is, ultimately, little in it for those helping countries. It shows that the developed world is - at times only with arm-twisting - willing to put its money behind its brave and wise UN General Assembly speeches. And it shows that some countries – albeit often those of the developing world – will even put its soldiers in harm’s way for a cause they believe is just. I believe the only hope for the world is in collective action and if The Peacekeepers helps that goal, I am happy. On behalf of the National Film Board of Canada, and in particular those who worked on the film and those who are in the film, I wish to thank you sincerely for this award.

ONE WORLD TO BE REPRESENTED BY SEVERAL PROMINENT INDIVIDUALS
The One World Festival in 2005 will present along with the works of highly regarded artists with extensive and much acclaimed film works, such as Raymond Depardon, Pirjo Honkasal, Kim Longinott, Nicolas Philibert, Avi Mograbi, Jonathan Stack, or Alexander Gutman, also the latest works of young talented authors, who have already captivated audiences with their previous films, such as director Ditsi Carolin (Bunso – the Youngest Prisoner) and Simone Bitton (The Wall). At the same time the festival will devote due opportunity to show the works of a new generation of very gifted filmmakers as represented by the director of the film Fragments of Bosnia, Claudia Tosi and the young pair of Polish filmmakers Hanna Polak and Andrzej Celinski, whose film Children of Leningradsky was nominated for the Oscar in 2004. Another film deserving of attention is the sensitive filmed and extremely successful debut from Norwegian director Brit Jorunn, My Beloved Child of the previously mentioned film Made in China by beginning filmmaker David Redmont with an original musical collage, which follows the journey of beaded necklaces from the Chinese factory to the American consumers at a carnival in New Orleans.
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