A look back
Winners 2020 by region: A mini-series, Part 3
We started our journey with the German-speaking award winners, including the Grand Prix winner of 2020 and crossed a fine selection of the French, Russian and Asian winners, remember?
Let`s continue the excursion and travel together to our next destinations. The last chapter of our mini-series will introduce some eye-catching winning productions from North America, the Middle East, and the United Kingdom.
North America
Every year several productions from North America are among the winners of our festival, including works from Accenture or Richter Studios. Huffman Creative, SimuLyve International, Timeframe Films and Visual Contact participated for the first time and yet shined with their submissions.
Two submissions from the United States left a lasting impression on the jury: Richter Studios’ film for the “Stan Mikita Hockey School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing”, which was filmed over 4 days with sign language experts for the interviewing process, received a Gold Dolphin for their stunning work.
Visual Contact’s production “Covid Nurse”, a very touching film, shot over the course of a 12.5-hour night shift, revealing the life-and-death struggle of nurses on the front lines of battling the current pandemic, also got awarded with Gold.
By travelling a little bit more up north, we will find the Vancouver based production company Timeframe Films, which received a Silver and a Gold Dolphin for their outstanding documentary of the life and culture of the Dene People, with nearly 12,000 native speakers across Canada, “Dëne Sųłıné – Our People”.
The Middle East
Four production companies from the Middle East, namely Double Exposure Productions from the United Arabic Emirates, Forward and NQLA Studio from Saudi Arabia as well as The Film House from Qatar, came out on top of all entries of this region. Their productions “SHAMS – SHARJAH MEDIA CITY”, “Hard Phase”, “MAHD Academy (It's Time)” and “The Landing” were selected by the jury to be recognized with awards or finalist certificates at the 2020 festival edition.
For the second year in a row, Double Exposure Productions were awarded a Gold Dolphin. Their submission “SHAMS – SHARJAH MEDIA CITY” is marked by creativity, high quality, and innovation:
The film production company Forward convinced the jury with their production “Hard Phase”, a social media film on how the Saudi Arabian society adapted during the previous corona lockdown, and thus received in total three of the coveted Dolphin Trophies. A beautiful film, showing how working together hand in hand helps to avoid as much losses as possible during such challenging times.
The United Kingdom
Our last stop leads us to the United Kingdom. Traditionally, participants from the UK are highly represented. Just for last year a remarkable number of 114 British productions entered the competition, among them exceptional 30 winners including Make Waves, malt. content specialist, Media Zoo, Radley Yeldar, Shell International and The Edge Picture Company, just to name a few.
Like some years before, several Dolphin Trophies went to the production companies Plastic Pictures and RD Content, among them also two Black Dolphins for their exceptional film craft. “META” by Plastic Pictures impressed the jury with their remarkable sound/music compilation and was awarded the Black Dolphin for “Best Music”.
RD Content’s production “Clifford Chance – 'Sustainable Recruitment Alliance'”, which combines real-life film capturing genuine and emotional response and interspersed with hand-drawn animation, received the Black Dolphin for “Best Editing”.
With this selection of winners, we will end our journey and mini-series “Winners 2020 by region”.
If you are interested in watching all winning productions, check out our website! Stay tuned and read an exciting interview next time…