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FOCAL Awards 2023 Shortlisted Nominees

2023 shortlisted nominations

Gladbeck: The Hostage Crisis

Director:
Volker Heise
Producer(s):
Yan Schoenefeld
Archive Researcher/ Producer:
Janne Gärtner, Monika Preischl, Mona El-Bira
Archival Sources:
DFA, ZDF, RTL, ARD Aktuell, WDR/ Radio Bremen
Production Company:
Film Five GmbH
Country of Production:
Germany

Synopsis

Gladbeck, Germany, August 1988: Two gangsters rob a bank, take two hostages and embark on an odyssey across West Germany. They hijack a bus carrying 32 passengers. The police lose control of the situation as reporters get whiff of spectacle and inject themselves into a crime that blossoms into a media sensation. For three days, the eyes and ears of the entire country are glued to live television, live radio and newspapers – and before it’s all over, two innocent people are dead.

GLADBECK: THE HOSTAGE CRISIS tells an abysmal story exclusively using archive materials, including news, live reports, telephone recordings and amateur recordings made over the three days of the hostage rampage. The film is an unsparing look at the moment when news became merchandise and crime became spectacle – it was the beginning of an era that persists until today.

American Experience: Taken Hostage

Director:
Robert Stone
Producer(s):
Robert Stone
Executive Producer:
Cameo George
Co-Producer:
Nariman Hamed
Senior Series Producer:
Susan Bellows
Archive Researcher/ Producer:
Richard Lewit, Robert Stone, Nariman Hamid, Alan Andres, Elizabeth Klinck, Jeff Krulik
Archival Sources:
ABC News Video Source, Associated Press, Getty Images, Rush Media, National Archives (NARA)
Production Company:
A Robert Stone Productions Film for American Experience.

Synopsis

Unfolding like a political thriller, Taken Hostage tells the story of the Iran hostage crisis, when 52 American diplomats, Marines and civilians were held hostage at the American Embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979. For the next 444 days, the world watched as the United States received a daily barrage of humiliation, vitriol and hatred from a country that had long been one of our closest allies. Told through the candid, personal testimony of those whose lives were upended by the action, the crisis would transform both the U.S. and Iran and forever upend the focus and direction of American foreign policy.

Taken Hostage, written directed and produced by Robert Stone, uses candid, eyewitness testimonies to tell the story of these dramatic, history-making events.

The Natural History of Destruction

Director:
Sergei Loznitsa
Producer(s):
Gunnar Dedio, Regina Bouchehri, Uljana Kim, Sergei Loznitsa, Maria Choustova
Footage Archive Producer:
Manuel Heller
Archival Sources:
German Federal Archives, PROGRESS.film, Imperial War Museums, AP Archive, British Pathé
Production Company:
LOOKS Filmproduktionen GmbH, Studio Uljana Kim, ATOMS & VOID
Country of Production:
Germany, Lithuania, Netherlands

Synopsis

Inspired by W. G. Sebald's book "Air War and Literature” and using only archival footage, the Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa explores the extent of the destruction of German cities in World War II and raises crucial ethical issues: Is it morally justifiable to use the civilian population as a tool in war? Is it possible to justify mass destruction with higher "moral" ideals? These questions are as relevant today as they were 80 years ago and their urgency is tragically evident in current political events.

Non-Aligned: Scenes from the Labudović Reels

Director:
Mila Turajlić
Producer(s):
Carine Chichkowsky, Mila Turajlić
Footage Archive Producer:
Mila Turajlić
Archival Sources:
Filmske Novosti, Radio-Televizija Srbije, United Nations Audiovisual Library
Production Company:
Poppy Pictures, Survivance, Restart, Kino
Country of Production:
Serbia, France, Croatia, Montenegro

Synopsis

Non-Aligned & Ciné-Guerrillas is a documentary diptych of two feature-length films that take us on an archival road trip through the birth of the Third World project, based on unseen 35mm materials filmed by Stevan Labudović, the cameraman of Yugoslav President Tito.

Non-Aligned re-traces the birth of the Non-Aligned movement, examining how a global project of political emancipation was constituted by the cinematic image.

Elizabeth: The Unseen Queen

Director:
Simon Finch
Producer(s):
Simon Finch
Archive Researcher/ Producer:
Briony Clark, Jo St Mart
Archival Sources:
AP Archive, British Movietone; British Pathe/ Reuters, Imperial War Museums, BBC, The Royal Collection Trust
Production Company:
BBC Studios
Country of Production:
United Kingdom

Synopsis

Throughout her life The Queen has always been in the public eye. But ever since she was a young girl the Royal Family have also filmed each other. These home movies were never intended to be seen by a wider audience, but for this unique collaboration between the British Film Institute and the BBC, all of that footage, much of it unseen and over 80 years old, was painstakingly restored and digitised. Together with the other largely unseen elements of The Royal Collection – rare newsreels and privately-commissioned films– this material formed the core of a BBC1 feature documentary to mark the Platinum Jubilee. Added to the mix were excerpts from the Queen’s previously unreleased letters, an original score, and innovative graphic sequences that helped integrate the archive. Furthermore, the film featured no interviews and instead used Elizabeth’s voice to carry us through the story, taken from speeches, interviews and an exclusive last recording session at Windsor Castle in May 2022. A rare feat of filmmaking which allowed us to get close to the subject using entirely archive content, this valedictory documentary on the late Queen’s early life forms the nearest we will ever come to her filmed autobiography.