The Rory Peck Awards 2000

Carmela Baranowska:
East Timor - The Law Of Violence

Winner: Features Award

Self-funded
Shot: July / September 1999
Broadcast on SBS Dateline

In 1999, Carmela Baranowska traveled to East Timor to document the last year of the Indonesian occupation. She acted both as camera-operator and sound recordist, working by herself. Her first film "Shoot them Dead" followed the growth of Indonesian military supported militia activity in East Timor. "The Law of Violence" is her second film and begins the day before registration commences in the UN referendum to decide East Timor's future. As the filming progressed, the Indonesian military and militia began openly intimidating journalists. Those that remained worked together to ensure that the news would be transmitted to the world. The film ends with the evacuation of the UN compound in Dili in mid-September last year. Both films are collected as "scenes from an occupation", a sixty-seven minute documentary.

"I was filming and sound recording by myself, without a film crew. I was a recent film graduate who first traveled to East Timor in March 1999 with a digital camera and virtually no funding. On a very practical, technical level, I also knew that working as a one-person crew meant that I had to be close to what was happening. I wanted to be closely connected to people and events, to be in the middle of any given situation - however difficult, dramatic or humorous. I wanted to follow what was going on by direct observation, the immediacy of the here and now. I was interested to see the Timorese speaking for themselves, to themselves in dramatic times, making choices in the real space in which such choices were made - their own."

Judges Quotes:

"shot in a difficult, delicate situation,this piece underlines how independent journalists are bearing witness. Being there to the end of the story when most crews were forced into the UN compound, she stuck with people, recording them, moving between both sides."
Nik Gowing, presenter, BBC World

Very moving and intense. Not seeking melodramatic effect, even when showing hysterical people, not the traditional approach - It's the camera that does the talking."
lla Terkelson, TV2 Denmark

"The power of the emotions really came through"

Peter Knowles, BBCNews

"She is obviously a real talent and has a great eye."
David Lloyd, Commissioning Editor, Channel 4 Television

Carmela Baranowska - Biography

Carmela Baranowska was born in Sydney in 1969 and went to the University of Melbourne where she obtained a Master of Arts in English and Cultural Studies in 1995. Between 1993-5 she travelled widely in Thailand and Burma living with the Karen, an ethnic minority group in Burma that has been fighting the world's longest running civil war. In 1997 Carmela studied at the Victorian College of the Arts School of film and television, obtaining a Graduate Diploma in Documentary Filmmaking. Her VCA graduation film "Hidden in the Wind" was awarded the Film Victoria Award for Best Documentary at the VCA Graduation Screenings and the 1998 ATOM award for Best Tertiary Student Produced Documentary. It was later screened at the 1998 International Documentary Film Festival in Lisbon. In 1998 Carmela worked as a director of photography on "Here to Stay" (director: Catherine Gough-Brady), a one-hour documentary about the Maritime Union of Australia dispute.

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