This year we are delighted to host the 2024 FOCAL Awards at the Church House Westminster on June 20th, we hope you can join us. Congratulations to all the shortlisted nominees.
2024 shortlisted nominations
JFK: One day in America
Director:
Ella Wright
Producer(s):
Charlotte Rodrigues / Sophie Dimitriadis / Henry Longden
Footage Archive Producer:
Margaret Beckett / Lisa Clayton-Jones / Alex Cowan / Jacqui Edwards
Archival Sources:
The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza / The John F Kennedy Library and Museum / ABC News Videosource / Getty Images / Premium Archive Films: Editorial / NBC News / Texas Archive of the Moving Image
Production Company:
72 Films
Country of Production:
UK
Original Release:
2023
Synopsis
Secret Service agents and other key eyewitnesses give a powerful and emotional account of how President John F Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. From an enthusiastic reception on their arrival in Texas, JFK and Jackie travel to Dallas where President Kennedy is brutally shot while riding in the motorcade. A secret service agent narrowly misses the fatal bullet and at Parkland Hospital JFK tragically dies. America changes forever.
Résistances
Director:
Patrick Rotman
Producer(s):
Michel Rotman / Marie-Hélène Ranc
Footage Archive Producer:
Marie-Hélène Barbéris
Archival Sources:
INA / AP Archive / Atelier des archives / NARA / ECPAD
Production Company:
KUIV
Country of Production:
France
Original Release:
2023
Synopsis
- Résistances recounts the lives (and deaths) of around thirty women and men between 1940 and 1945, whose heroic, romantic and tragic itineraries form the puzzle of the Resistance
- Resistance traces a collective history through individual stories.
- Résistances shows the activities of the “army of shadows” throughout the war (intelligence, sabotage, coup de main, propaganda, newspapers, maquis etc.)
- Resistances reveals how the German services of the Abwehr or the Gestapo chased down the resistance fighters. How they sought, often successfully, to penetrate clandestine organizations through undercover agents.
- Resistances relates the history of the main clandestine movements and networks and traces the difficult path to unification which led from the Resistance to the Resistance.
Henry Ford, l'inventeur du siècle américain (The dark side of citizen Ford)
Director:
Nicolas Glimois
Producer(s):
Samuel Kissous / Fabrice Frank
Footage Archive Producer:
Karim Kamrani Ghajar
Archival Sources:
Critical Past / NARA via Atelier des archives / Atelier des archives / The Henry Ford / Periscope Film
Production Company:
Pernel Media
Country of Production:
France
Original Release:
2023
Synopsis
Henry Ford is more than just a charismatic industrialist who revolutionized the world of cars and work. He was also an anti Semitic megalomaniac who put his weight behind delusional commercial projects and became one of Adolf Hitler’s greatest inspirations. This archived documentary reveals the complex life of a man with wild and controversial ambitions who would go on to invent the 20th century and change the face of America and the West.
Out of Control. Reports on the Atomic Bomb
Director:
Beatriz Caravaggio
Producer(s):
Beatriz Caravaggio
Footage Archive Producer:
Beatriz Caravaggio
Archival Sources:
CriticalPast / Los Alamos National Laboratory / National Archives and Records Administration / National Archives of Australia / Prelinger Archives
Production Company:
ArsVideo Producciones
Country of Production:
Spain
Original Release:
2023
Synopsis
Since the horrific bombings over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan and North Korea have conducted more than 2,000 nuclear tests.
Governments systematically filmed these tests, amassing thousands of audiovisual archives. They were filmed in order to study scientifically the development of the detonation, just as hundreds of classified reports were written, dissecting the entire nuclear operation. Nothing was left undocumented in these reports, in which human beings, animals and life itself were little more than formal objects of analysis and intervention, and everything related to the domain of ethics and the preservation of life was expelled from the scope of consideration of these pages.
The precision and control of these nuclear tests have led to enormous stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, the consequence of an unstoppable arms race.
Agentur Karl Höfffkes / RGAKFD / Bleed & Geluid / KOBE Planet Film Archive / Australian War Memorial
Production Company:
Agat Films / ARTE France
Country of Production:
France
Original Release:
2023
Synopsis
In Prague, on May 27, an attack against Reinhard Heydrich, one of the most terrifying servants of the Hitler regime, has just been carried out by Jan and Josef. Two Czechs, parachuted in January, to assassinate the blonde beast. Vladimir, the doctor on duty at the Prague hospital, has no idea what trouble awaits him. On June 4, Reinhardt Heydrich took his last breath. If the butcher of Prague dies, the fact remains that the persecutions against the Jewish people continue. The final solution is accelerating. In Paris, Francine discovers that she is not a little girl like the others, it is written on her chest. In Belgium, before their deportation, Adrien's parents entrusted their little boy to Brouwer's family. Adrien, hidden among the children, learns to live in a foreign family. For the survival of his wife and daughter Marie, Icek volunteers to work for the Germans.
Jan and Josef are nowhere to be found. Hitler in rage, little Vaclav will pay the high price of Nazi anger. Meanwhile, Johann-Paul Kremer, in Auschwitz, enjoys the dancing dog shows.
