2000
Event 2000
Prize of Prizes
goes to Danish and Swedish films
Princes Award is now the largest environmental film prize in Europe
Millennium Award
Award Winners: Rio Summit, ICLEI and Xerox�s �backtrack factory�
| After four years of success giving awards to the best European environmental audiovisual
productions PAF has initiated a new European media award � Prize of Prizes. Six well-known
European film festivals have joined in an Environmental Film Festival Network (EFFN) aiming at
selecting the best film from all European environmental film festivals. 12 films were nominated �
6 in each of the categories fiction and documentary. All these films were previous winners of
environmental film festivals. Two winners of winners were given the Princes� Award.
This year the award ceremony took place at Copenhagen City Hall on 8 June at 10.00 a.m. to 2.00 p.m. where the two winning films � one fiction and one documentary � will be awarded the Princes� Award trophy by chairman of the jury Ms Margot Wallstr�m, EU Commissioner for Environment |
From the left: Winner of the documentary category Poul-Erik Heilbuth, Margot Wallstr�m, Bo Asmus Kjeldgaard, Chairman of the PAF board, and the winner of the fiction category Peter Ekwal. |
In category fiction the winner is: �Sofrosyne�, by Peter Ekwal, Kr�ger & Ekwal Film Production , Sweden, Fiction, 13 min. � Contribution from EnviroFilm, Slovakia A symbolic illustration through dance, sound and images of the relationship between man and the environment. The film illustrates environmental issues in a very untraditional, but beautiful and artistic way through three themes based on Greek mythology: Hybris, Nemesis and Sofrosyne. The film is a creative, personal interpretation of environmental issues. It is created for the modern viewer more like a music video or commercial than an environmental document. In category documentary the winner is: "Operation Whitewash", by Poul-Erik Heilbuth, DR TV, Denmark, Documentary, 46 min. � Contribution from Prix Leonardo, Italy This investigative documentary shows how obsolete ferries from Denmark take their last voyage to the beaches of India, where they are broken up. For the Indian labourers who do the job, it is dangerous, dirty and low paid work with no protection against the toxic materials that the ships contain. The film raises important questions about Europe�s relationship to developing countries. This is an investigative journalistic peace of work about export of environmental catastrophes. The solution is clear, but expensive: Industrial countries should clean up themselves and not export their problems. It has another emotional aspect as it has flashbacks to childhood memories of ferry trips. |
From the ceremony at the City Hall of Copenhagen: |
To celebrate the new millennium, PAF has taken the first steps beyond awarding the best environmental films in Europe. This year PAF presents the Millennium Award for the best Sustainable Initiative in honour of the important steps that have been initiated for Sustainable Development.
Maurice Strong: For helping to make happen the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio, 1992.
Jeb Brugmann: For the initiation of ICLEI, the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives.
The Document Company � Xerox: For the company�s initiative to reduce waste through return and remanufacture schemes � the �backtrack factory�.
Members of the selection jury were:
- Margot Wallstr�m, EU Commissioner for Environment (chair)
- Domingo Jimenez-Beltr�n, Executive Director of The European Environment Agency
- Javed Ahmad, IUCN - The World Conservation Union
- J�rgen Lund Madsen, Environmental Protection Agency, Copenhagen
- Karl Lidgren, International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics at Lund University
