PriMed 2015: the awards

“Voyage en Barbarie” by Cécile Allegra and Delphine Deloget, won the Documentary Grand Prix – Mediterranean Issues. This heart-rending film about the trade in humans in the Sinai made a big impact on the jury chaired by Reda Benjelloun, head of news magazines and documentaries at 2M.

“Speed Sisters” by Amber Fares and “Patience, patience, t’iras au paradis !” by Hadja Lahbib both won several awards, a measure of how good they are: for the first, the 2M Broadcasting Award, the Rai3 Broadcasting Award and the Averroès Junior Award (given by 600 6th-formers from the PACA region, Switzerland and Croatia); the second film won Best First Film and the ASBU Special Mention.

Women directors were very well represented in these awards, since six of the eight award-winning films were directed or co-directed by women.

Click here to experience the complete award ceremony.

All the winners:

Documentary Grand Prix MEDITERRANEAN ISSUES
sponsored by France Télévisions
VOYAGE EN BARBARIE by Cécile ALLEGRA and Delphine DELOGET
Human beings traded quite openly in the Egyptian Sinai. The victims, Eritreans for the most past, are imprisoned there and tortured until a huge ransom is paid. 

MEDITERRANEAN MEMORY
sponsored by INA (Institut National de l’Audiovisuel)
EVENEMENTS DE PHOCEE 1914 by Agnès SKLAVOS and Stelios TATAKIS
In 1914, the entire Greek population living on the coast of Asia Minor had to leave their homes and find refuge in Greece. An archaeologist and his collaborators managed to help and save a considerable number of them in their flight.

BEST FIRST FILM
sponsored by RAI (Radiotelevisione italiana)
PATIENCE, PATIENCE, T’IRAS AU PARADIS ! by Hadja LAHBIB
In the 1960’s thousands of North Africans went to Belgium to work. Among them, women who had left everything to follow a man into an unknown world. 50 years later they are consumed by a desire for emancipation.

MEDITERRANEAN ART, HERITAGE AND CULTURES AWARD
L’ACCADEMIA DELLA FOLLIA by Anush HAMZEHIAN
Since the psychiatric hospital in Trieste closed, the patients have lived in the community. Some work with a troupe of actors putting on two shows a year in the town’s best theatre. They are known as “the Hollywood of the mad”.

AVERROES JUNIOR AWARD
sponsored by MPM (Communauté urbaine Marseille Provence Métropole)
SPEED SISTERS de Amber FARES
They are between 22 and 32 years old, they live in Palestine and they are known as the Speed Sisters. Betty, Marah, Mona, Noor and Maysoon are the first Palestinian women to join the male-dominated car-racing fraternity, taking on men as equals.

MEDITERRANEAN SHORT FILM AWARD (Public’s Award)
REBELLE DE RAQQA by Claire BILLET and Lyana SALEH
A film about Haya El Ali, alias Rezane, a 26-year old Syrian woman fighting the regime , who secretly filmed the taking of Raqqa by ISIS. France 24 followed her in her Paris exile, at the Maison des Journalistes.

MEDITERANEAN MULTIMEDIA AWARD
sponsored by Orange
SYRIE, JOURNAUX INTIMES DE LA REVOLUTION by Caroline DONATI and Carine LEFEBVRE-QUENNELL
At Aleppo, Majid films a brigade of the Free Syrian Army. At Damascus, Amer witnesses the siege of Daraya, a strategic suburb. In Turkey, Oussama incarnates the political activism of young revolutionaries. A refugee in the Lebanon, Joudi describes Assad’s prisons. Night and day they film their disrupted lives and they speak to us.

ASBU SPECIAL MENTION
PATIENCE, PATIENCE, T’IRAS AU PARADIS ! by Hadja LAHBIB

2M BROADCASTING AWARD (Morocco)
SPEED SISTERS by Amber FARES

France 3 Corse ViaStella BROADCASTING AWARD
THE GROCER by Dimitris KOUTSIABASAKOS
Every week since 1980, Nikos, a Greek travelling grocer, has followed the same 50-mile route in a car with his wife and two sons. The film follows their journey over the course of a year.

RAI 3 BROADCASTING AWARD (Italy)
SPEED SISTERS by Amber FARES