19th May 2012
Rory Peck Awards 2010
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The Rory Peck Awards 2010
Sponsored by Sony Professional
Winners of the Rory Peck Awards 2010 Announced
- Najibullah Quraishi wins Rory Peck Award for Features for Behind Enemy Lines
- Roger Arnold wins Rory Peck Award for News for Red Shirts Protest
- Nick Read wins the Sony Professional Professional Impact Award for The Slumdog Children of Mumbai
- Mexican freelance cameraman, Arturo Perez, is recipient of 2010 Martin Adler Prize
LONDON, 18 November 2009 - Last night the Rory Peck Trust tonight honoured the skill, courage and enterprise of freelance news and current affairs cameramen and camerawomen at its annual Rory Peck Awards ceremony. Held at the BFI Southbank, the event was presented by Julie Etchingham and Rageh Omaar.
Afghan-Brit Najibullah Quraishi was presented with the Rory Peck Award for Features for Behind Enemy Lines, a film documenting the 10 days he spent embedded with Hezb-i-islam insurgents in Afghanistan in 2009. The judges praised Najibullah's documentary for its journalistic integrity and for the "warts and all" access that the filmmaker gained to the insurgents and their activities. A previous winner in 2002, Najibullah is the first person to win two Rory Peck Awards for different films.
US photojournalist Roger Arnold won the Rory Peck Award for News for his close and dramatic diary of events during the final week of anti-government protests in Bangkok, which the judges described as "a powerful and comprehensive piece of work". Shot for WSJ.com, this was the first time that footage produced and broadcast solely for the web had won a Rory Peck Award.
British director and cameraman Nick Read was awarded the Sony Professional Impact Award for The Slumdog Children of Mumbai. Honouring work that has an international humanitarian impact, the judges praised Nick's exceptional camerawork, and described the film as deeply moving and profoundly shocking.
The Martin Adler Prize was presented to Mexican freelance cameraman, Arturo Perez, who lives and works in Mexico's deadly border city of Ciudad Juarez, covering its bloody drugs war. Now in its fourth year, this non-competitive prize honours a freelancer who has played an exceptional role in the telling of a significant news story.
"Once again these awards demonstrate just how enterprising and talented the freelance community is", said Tina Carr, Director of The Rory Peck Trust. "All of this year's finalists and winners produced stories that required exceptional dedication and commitment, and it is important that we continue to recognise and support their work."
"The winners of this year's Rory Peck Awards highlight the strength of talent in today's international freelance community, and the lengths that they go to, to hunt out and report the real issues at play in the world.", said Olivier Bovis, Business Group Head for AV & Media at Sony Professional. "Sony Professional is proud to sponsor the Rory Peck Awards - it is our way of saying thank you to all the freelancers who work tirelessly to provide this powerful journalism on a daily basis".
NAJIBULLAH QURAISHI - WINNER, RORY PECK AWARD FOR FEATURES for Behind Enemy Lines
Shot in Afghanistan, October - November 2009, Clover Films for Channel 4 - Dispatches
Najibullah Quraishi's film documents the two weeks he spent with Hezb-i-Islami, Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters in the troubled Kunduz and Baghlan provinces in Afghanistan. Witnessing dramatic attacks on NATO supply routes, Najibullah also captures the day-to-day lives of the insurgents - complaints of boredom, the cold, and arguments with their commanders. Eventually however, one of the commanders becomes suspicious of Najibullah's motives and, fearing for his life, he is forced to flee the camp. The judges praised the journalistic integrity of Najibullah's film, which they described as a "warts and all" picture of the insurgents.
Najibullah Quraishi is an Afghan-born freelance reporter, cameraman and field producer. He has 10 years experience with Afghan National Television where he worked as a producer, reporter and presenter. In 2002, after successfully collaborating on the film 'Afghan Massacre: Convoy of Death', Najibullah moved to the UK, and in the same year won a Rory Peck Award for a film about the SAS in Afghanistan. His most recent works include 'The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan', and a series of films for WNET/Wide Angle.
The Rory Peck Award for Features honours freelance camerawork in news and current affairs features: in-depth pieces which look beyond the immediacy of a news story. Finalists for this category were Paul Refsdal for Taliban - Behind the Masks and Hopewell Rugoho Chin'ono for A Violent Response.
ROGER ARNOLD - WINNER, RORY PECK AWARD FOR NEWS for Red Shirts Protest
Shot in Thailand, April - May 2010. Commissioned and broadcast by Wall Street Journal.com
Roger's footage is a detailed diary of events in Bangkok during the final week of the anti-government protests in May 2010. Close, immediate and dramatic, we see the conflict from both the perspective of the protestors' and the Thai army. Roger is based in Bangkok - the story unfolded on his doorstep, and he was on the streets day and night, filming events as they happened. His footage shows the devastating violence of the protests, and also their tragic results - among the many people injured during the conflict were several of Roger's journalist friends, one of whom was killed.
The judges thought that this was a "powerful and comprehensive piece of work". One said: "As you would expect from a photo-journalist, the photography is fantastic. Roger showed initiative and courage; he covered the story from all angles, from all locations - you couldn't ask for more."
Roger Arnold is a freelance photographer, cameraman and journalist who has he has travelled and world including The Wall Street Journal, Al Jazeera, BBC, CNN, ABC, Paris Match, Der Speigel, Le Figaro, Stern, Financial Times, Cicero, Marie Claire, Elle, Days Japan, Janes Intelligence Review, Penthouse, GQ, Maxim, Amnesty International, International Committee of the Red Cross, The United Nations and many others.
The Rory Peck Award for News honours freelance camerawork in the coverage of a news event where the focus is on the immediacy of the story. Finalists for this category were Robin Forestier-Walker for Kyrgyzstan Aftermath, and Sebastian Rich for Afghan Bomb Disposal.
NICK READ: WINNER, SONY PROFESSIONAL IMPACT AWARD for The Slumdog Children of Mumbai
Shot in India, July-September 2009. True Vision Productions for Channel 4 - Dispatches
Shot over 3 months through the Monsoon, Nick Read's film captures the unvarnished reality of life for four children living in the slums and on the streets of Mumbai: seven-year-old Deepa, who lives next to an open rubbish dump and runs barefoot through Mumbai traffic selling flowers to help support her family; 11-year-old Salaam, who, a few weeks after running away from his abusive stepmother lives rough outside the main railway station; and twins Hussan and Hussein, also 11, who risk cholera and infection fishing for scraps in a filthy canal so they can earn money to eat. Since transmission, a Foundation set up by the film's producers has raised money to fund the children's education and future welfare. The judges said the film was beautifully-shot, deeply moving and profoundly shocking. One said: "The difficulties of filming with street children in Mumbai during the monsoon can't be over-stated. This is exceptional camerawork."
Nick Read's career started at the National Film School. In the 1980's he was an acclaimed news cameraman, covering many conflicts including Northern Ireland, Lebanon and Nicaragua. His breakthrough as a documentary filmmaker came in the wake of Czechoslovakia's Velvet Revolution with his film about the secret police there. Since then he has shot, and often directed, over 40 broadcast documentaries in more than 70 countries. His most recent film about runaway teenagers in the UK was broadcast on Channel 4 in October 2010.
The Sony Professional Impact Award honours freelance camerawork in either news or current affairs which raises humanitarian issues and whose broadcast has had an international impact or contributed to a change in perception or policy. Finalists for this category were Greg Brosnan and Jen Szymaszek for In the Shadow of the Raid, and Liviu Tipurita for Gypsy Child Thieves.
ENDS
About The Rory Peck Awards
The Rory Peck Awards is a highly respected international competition that honours excellence in freelance news and current affairs camerawork. Established in 1995, it is the only awards dedicated to the work of professional freelance cameramen and camerawomen and demonstrates why they are so important to the newsgathering and broadcast industries. Every year the Awards attract international media interest across print, web and television, including annual broadcast. The Rory Peck Awards ceremony is the main fundraiser for The Rory Peck Trust.
About The Rory Peck Trust
The Rory Peck Trust supports freelance newsgatherers and their families around the world in times of need and promotes their welfare and safety. The Trust was established in 1995, two years after freelance cameraman Rory Peck was killed while filming in Moscow. It was set up by his wife, Juliet and close friends to provide the help for freelancers and their families that nobody else would give. They also established the Rory Peck Awards to honour the work of freelance news cameramen and women. The Trust has since grown into an internationally recognised organisation which distributes charitable grants through the Rory Peck Beneficiaries Programme, and provides hostile environment safety training bursaries through the Rory Peck Training Fund. The Trust is also widely respected for the role it plays promoting good practice on behalf of freelancers and their right to work safely, with adequate support and protection.
About Sony Professional
Sony Professional, a division of Sony Europe, is the leading supplier of AV/IT solutions to businesses across a wide variety of sectors including, Media and Broadcast, Video Security and Retail, Transport & Large Venue markets. It delivers products, systems and applications to enable the creation, manipulation and distribution of digital audio-visual content that add value to businesses and their customers. With over 25 years' experience in delivering innovative market-leading products, Sony Professional is ideally placed to deliver exceptional quality and value to its customers. Sony's Professional Services division, its systems integration arm, offers its customers access to the expertise and local knowledge of skilled professionals across Europe. Collaborating with a network of established technology partners, Sony delivers end to end solutions that address the customer's needs, integrating software and systems to achieve each organisations' individual business goals. For more information please visit www.pro.sony.eu
For further details about this year's finalists, including biographies and judges comments please visit www.rorypecktrust.org or contact:
Molly Clarke, Communications Manager
The Rory Peck Trust
2 Grosvenor Gardens, London SW1W 0DH, UK
Tel: +44 (0)20 7730 1424; Email: molly@rorypecktrust.org
For further information about Sony Professional please contact:
Louise Bryce, PR Manager, Sony Europe
Tel: +44 (0) 1256 483156; Email:louise.bryce@eu.sony.com
Photograph of Sebastian Rich - finalist in news catagory