2026 FOCAL International Awards Shortlisted Nominees
The FOCAL Awards celebrate three areas – production, restoration and preservation, and people. All our production categories celebrate the very best use of footage within the production, programme or project.
Please select the award category you wish to view from the drop down box.
2026 Best Use of Footage in a History Production
A history production of a single episode (up to a maximum of 60 minutes) or a multiple-part series that includes documentaries or docudramas dealing with historical issues, events, or people.
Shortlisted
7/7: The London Bombings
Director:
Adam Wishart / Jim Nally
Producer(s):
Adam Wishart / Jim Nally / Neil Grant
Footage Archive Producer:
Mark Tinkler
Archival Sources:
BBC News archive / ITN / Getty Images / AP Archive / Reuters Screenocean / Coroner's Inquest into the London Bombings of 7 July 2005
Production Company:
The Slate Works /
Country of Production:
United Kingdom
Original Release:
2025
Synopsis
On 7 July 2005, four bombs exploded in London - the first suicide bombings on English soil. Hour by hour, day by day, this series tells story of the biggest police investigation in British history, combining interviews with Police, Emergency Responders, Investigators from the Security Services, Politicians, victims & victims' families with archive footage sourced from tape rushes from the time, UGC footage & stills filmed by victims & witnesses, and not-seen-before archive supplied by Emergency Service workers and Intelligence investigators. Later episodes followed the story as it moved to an international stage, as well as the investigations within the UK.
Archive, previously kept secret, supplied to the production by Police & Intelligence investigators helped shed new light on both the bombings themselves, as well the investigations. And the use of graphics was able to bring to life, audio and written archives that would otherwise be difficult to include.
Clock - Socialist Burgers Inc.
Director:
Gustav Górecki
Producer(s):
Julia Wickström Giraldeau / Petter Hansson
Footage Archive Researcher:
Gustav Górecki / Annelie Bergman
Footage Archive Producer:
Petter Hansson
Archival Sources:
SVT Archives / Centrum för Näringslivshistoria / Private Archives / TT Bild / Getty Images
Production Company:
Deedy Group AB / SVT
Country of Production:
Sweden
Original Release:
2025
Synopsis
Clock – Socialist Burgers Inc. tells the story of the world’s only state-run hamburger chain, which competed against McDonald’s between 1976 and 1999.
In 1973, McDonald’s arrives in Sweden – a nation torn between fascination with and resistance to American culture. While the fast-food giant sparks both excitement and protests, the state-owned restaurant company SARA struggles to stay afloat. In a true Swedish compromise, they decide to create their own version of McDonald’s: Clock – The All-Time Hamburger.
The film rewinds the tape to explain how Sweden’s tradition of collective ownership could make such a socialist hamburger chain not only possible but logical. As the decades unfold, Clock mirrors Sweden’s transformation – from a welfare-state paradise of social democracy to a free-market society of privatization and venture capital.
Blending a wealth of archival footage, dramatizations, and animation, Clock – Socialist Burgers Inc. humorously reveals how the Swedes tried to steal the most American symbol of all – the hamburger – and how that attempt reflects a broader identity crisis. In the end, Clock is not just a tale of burgers and brands, but of a nation grappling with who it wants to be.
Hurricane Katrina: Race Against Time
Director:
Traci A. Curry
Producer(s):
Jonathan Chinn / Simon Chinn / Ryan Coogler / Myles Estey / Ted Skillman / Zinzi Coogler / Sev Ohanian / Peter Nicks / Kalia King
Footage Archive Producer:
Julieann Galdames
Archival Sources:
Rasmus Holm / Jason Affolder / John Keller / CNN / ABC News
Production Company:
Lightbox / Proximity Media / National Geographic
Country of Production:
United States
Original Release:
2025
Synopsis
When Hurricane Katrina unleashed a catastrophic flood on New Orleans, it exposed far more than the vulnerabilities in the city's faulty levee system. Told through emotional moment-to-moment accounts of survivors and through riveting and immersive archival footage - some of it never before seen - this five-part premium series reveals Katrina as a disaster that was anything but natural.
The story of how an international network of young Jewish women took on the might of the Soviet Union, at the height of the Cold War, in support of persecuted “Refusenik” Jews… and won.
Vietnam: The Birth of a Nation
Director:
Philipp Gromov / Lucio Mollica / Lena Noad
Producer(s):
Regina Bouchehri / Gunnar Dedio / Birgit Rasch / Eleonora Faccio / Ilona Dedio / Katarzyna Ozga
Footage Archive Researcher:
William Qualey / Katarina Rakic / Đoàn Hồng Lê / Alex-Thái Đình Võ / Minh Anh Đỗ / Kerstin Lommatzsch / Devi Liebergesell
Footage Archive Producer:
Laura Böhme
Archival Sources:
Vietnamese Film Institute / Vietnam National Museum Of History / Gaumont Pathé (Orchidée Collection and André Sauvage Collection) / PROGRESS - DEFA (Deutsche Film AG) / ECPAD (l'Établissement de Communication et de Production Audiovisuelle de la Défense)
Production Company:
LOOKS Film & TV Produktionen GmbH / LOOKS Filmproduktionen GmbH / LOOKS Warsaw / Morgana Studio
Country of Production:
Germany / Poland / Italy
Original Release:
2025
Synopsis
In April 1975, the war in Vietnam came to an end. Fifty years later, this four-part documentary series retraces the journey of the Vietnamese people—from the time Vietnam was part of the French colonial empire, through decades of war and fragile peace, to the present day.
Among them are a member of the royal family, the son of the communist leader Le Duan, the minister of information of the US-allied government, soldiers from both the North and the South, Buddhists and Catholics, “Viet Cong” and “boat people.”
Filmed in Vietnam and along the routes of the Vietnamese diaspora, across three continents and six countries, the series provides a new understanding of this nation that fought for its freedom, became the epicenter of the Cold War and is still dealing with the aftermath of such a dramatic past. 50 years after the end of the war, there has not been an open dialogue among Vietnamese who fought on opposite sides and wounds are still open. This series offers the opportunity to discover dreams, memories and traumas on both sides and provide a memorable lesson to understand the conflicts of today.
