PRIZE-WINNERS*
Award-winning programmes 2023
CIVIS – Europe’s Media Prize for Migration, Integration and Cultural Diversity and – linked to this – social cohesion in Europe honours programme achievements in radio, television and the Internet which promote peaceful coexistence in the European immigration society. The CIVIS Cinema Prize as an audience award is added.
Top Award + CIVIS VIDEO AWARD
ARTE THEME: Last Refuge – The House at the Gate to the Sahara
Documentation
ARTE G.E.I.E
Author | Director: Ousmane Samassékou
Editing: Philippe Muller
Production: Estelle Robin You (Point du Jour – Les films du balibari)
Co-production: Don Edkins (STEPS), Andrey S Diarra (DS Productions)
At the “Migrant’s House” in the Malian city of Gao, Africans on their way to elsewhere on the continent or to Europe meet others who have already tried in vain and been sent back. At the migration center, they are cared for – and warned of the risks of the potentially fatal journey. Nevertheless, some stick to their plan. Esther and Kady, teenagers from Burkina Faso, make friends here with Natacha, who has already given up all hope of ever being reunited with her family.
“A masterpiece about people on the road, on the southern edge of the Sahara, about their dreams and traumas. Some are still full of hope for a happier life in Europe or elsewhere, others are stranded and on their way back home. The documentary tells of the fortunes of these migrants, empathetically but never obtrusively, close but never encroaching. A documentary, haunting like few others.
YOUNG C. AWARD
Border Conversations
Documentary
Academy Baden-Württemberg
Author | Director: Jonathan Brunner
Producer: Tristan Schneider
Examiner: Thomas Lauterbach
The film follows Karolina and Kornelia, two Polish activists who care for migrants at Poland’s border with Belarus. It is November 2021, thousands are trying to reach the European Union on this route. Many are wandering through the woods, desperately asking for help via chat messages. The two Polish women do what they can, but they come up against the limits of humanitarian aid in a Europe that is increasingly focusing on sealing itself off from the rest of the world and, in the process, accepting great human suffering.
“The film succeeds with reduced means, does without dramatic images and music and relies entirely on the dialogue of the two activists. The plight of the refugees is not directly shown and yet all the more present, for example when there is no answer to the message ‘How are you?’ The protagonists’ dilemma between helplessness and tenacity becomes tangible. It is, in both senses of the word, a borderline experience and an impressive portrayal of the everyday scandal called pushback.”
For the full contribution, please contact:
festivals@filmakademie.de
CIVIS VIDEO AWARD
The Lost, Episode 1
Drama series
SVT
Author: Ulf Ryberg
Director: Tova Magnusson
Editors: Joakim Tessert, Thomas Lagerman
Production: Patrick Ryborn
Co-production: Anna Croneman (SVT), Peter Zell (SVT), Peter Possne (Film i Väst),
Poa Strömberg (Unlimited Stories AB), Kjartan Thor Thordarson (Sagafilm)
Trucker Erwin drives his tanker truck across the Öresund Bridge to Sweden. In the tank he has eight Syrian refugees who have paid money for the transport. The police stop the truck, Erwin has to close the tank cap properly – and thus cut off the air supply for the people inside. That doesn’t seem to be a problem, behind the border the lid can be opened again. But a disturbing phone call with his future ex-wife makes Erwin forget that his charges in the tank are slowly running out of oxygen. This trip costs almost all of them their lives.
“An extremely intense series episode with a great acting performance by the lead actor, who convincingly conveys human frailty. The film sheds light on the criminal business with refugees, on what it can do to them, but also what it can do to smugglers. The fatal course of events out of control is narrated soberly, almost as if in a reportage, thus creating enormous pull.”
For the full contribution, please contact:
helene.auro@reinvent.dk
lucia.san.miguel@reinvent.dk
CIVIS VIDEO AWARD
Mohamed
Social Media Format
The Europeans | Are We Europe
Producer: Katz Laszlo and Mohamed Bah
Editor: Katy Lee
Sound design: Katz Laszlo
Mixing and mastering: Wojciech Oleksiak
Editorial support: Wojciech Oleksiak, Dominic Kraemer
Art direction and head of motion design: Mélody Da Fonseca
Motion design and illustration assistant: Andréa Reille, Rafaelle Fillastre
Visual editor: Teresa O’Connell
Visual executive producer: Mick Ter Reehorst
This is one episode from a series presenting eight portraits of young people in Europe, available as audio and animated video podcast. The episode focuses on Mohamed from Guinea, who has made it to Amsterdam in a dramatic odyssey and is now waiting for a decision on his asylum application. Mohamed has no papers and suffers under a bureaucratic system bent on rejection. He tells of his flight, his arrival, his longing to find a permanent new home in Europe.
“Both the insightful interview and the nothing short of magical visuals make accessible, especially for a young audience, an exceedingly tough subject. The wonderful, intricate and imaginative graphics give rhythm and pace to Mohamed’s narrative. Alongside the brutal reality of a refugee’s fate, the associative dramaturgy vividly brings to the fore the protagonist’s thoughts, feelings and longings.”
CIVIS VIDEO AWARD
Isabel Schayani | journalist and head of WDRforyou
For her many years of outstanding and sustained reporting on the topic of flight and asylum.
CIVIS AUDIO AWARD
Escape from Ukraine – a roller coaster ride of emotions, “Rendez-vous”: The resolution: “I want to live instead of waiting.”, Episode 6/6
Series
Swiss Radio and Television
Author: Roman Fillinger
Editing: Ivana Pribakovic
Producer: Philipp Fontana
The series depicts the refugee fate of 26-year-old Olga Miroshnik and her family, who fled the war in eastern Ukraine. It is a story of mixed emotions: relief and shame, guilt and anger, the desire to arrive and homesickness. The 6th episode deals with the difficulty to achieve your goals in volatile conditions. Olga’s relationship with Ruslan also suffers. She wants a life that is more than just waiting.
“The author patiently and empathetically builds up a basis of trust with the protagonists and thus allows the listeners emotional access to their fate. You begin to understand how the experience of war and flight leads to a lack of perspective and insecurity and thus prevents life planning.”
CIVIS AUDIO AWARD
Welcome Home Dr. Marco – Searching for Identity between Karl-Marx-Stadt and Kenya
Feature
SWR | Deutschlandfunk
Author: Ute Lieschke
Director: Ute Lieschke, Michael Lissek
Editors: Michael Lissek (SWR),
Christiane Habermalz (Deutschlandradio/Deutschlandfunk)
Dr. Marco works as an anesthesiologist in Leisnig in central Germany, one of the few Afro-Germans in the city. He has known looks of disdain ever since he grew up in the 1970s as a sheltered child in a family with father, mother and siblings in Karl-Marx-Stadt. But when he asked, “Mom, why do I look different?” he got no answer. While studying in Leipzig during the ‘Wende’, he meets other Afro-Germans, and later, when his two daughters, one white, the other black, start asking questions, he sets out to find his biological father.
“In a very touching, emotional and exciting way, the listener is taken into the story of three generations. Their experiences and living conditions are not sorted into good and bad, but are discussed without commentary from the author. The question is not whether racism existed in East Germany, but how it was experienced. Including political awareness and self-empowerment when all of a sudden there is a community to offer access to, and reflect, questions of identity.”
CIVIS AUDIO AWARD
Among Almans – Migrant Stories / Anxiety in the wake of the Haunau attack: Parshad about anger, episode 2
Podcast
Radio Bremen | COSMO
Authors | Editors: Cengiz Tarhan, Larissa Sobral, Sophie Anggawi, Karina Gordok, Isabelle Werner, Salwa Houmsi
Host: Salwa Houmsi
In dieser Folge ihres Podcasts „Unter Almans“ spricht Salwa Houmsi mit der Entertainerin Parshad Esmaeili über Rassismus in Deutschland. Es geht um die Angst und die Wut nach dem Anschlag von Hanau. Parshad erzählt, was die Tat in ihrem Leben verändert hat und warum Anti-Rassismus ein Schulfach sein müsste. Bildung sei das Gegenmittel, denn kein Mensch werde als Rassist:in geboren.
„Die Host Salwa Houmsi und ihre Gästin Parshad schaffen es, zu vermitteln, warum der Anschlag von Hanau eine weit über die Stadt hinausreichende Bedeutung hat und das Leben aller verändert. Das Gespräch ist natürlich, authentisch und offenherzig und gibt hinreichend Raum, die verschiedenen Erfahrungsebenen auszuloten. Das ist ebenso komplex wie unterhaltsam.“
CIVIS cinema AWARD
Sonne und Beton
Regie: David Wnendt
Drehbuchautoren: David Wnendt, Felix Lobrecht
Produzenten: Fabian Gasmia, David Wnendt
Koproduzent: Christoph Müller
Executive Producer: Martin Moszkowicz
Produktion/Verleih: Seven Elephants, Constantin Film | Constantin Film Verleih
Lukas, Gino und Julius leben in der Berliner Gropiusstadt. Es ist Sommer, es ist heiß und sie haben kein Geld. Ab und zu rauchen sie Gras. Dabei bekommen sie Ärger mit den Dealern, geraten in eine Schlägerei und sollen 500 Euro Schutzgeld bezahlen. Den einzigen Ausweg sehen sie gemeinsam mit ihrem Kumpel Sanchez darin, die neuen Schulcomputer zu klauen und zu Geld zu machen. Doch der Plan geht nicht auf.
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