No Clear Frontlines

Stephen Lambert, Chairman of the Judges, gives his report

The call from Tina Carr, Director of the Trust, seemed innocuous enough. "Would you be interested in chairing the judging of this year's Rory Peck Awards?" I knew the Trust was a good thing and the invitation was clearly an honour. I didn't know exactly what was involved, but I was delighted to accept.

These days I'm office bound. But when I was making films a few years ago I worked in quite a few of the world's hotspots - from the Balkans and Sri Lanka to South Africa and Gaza. I thought I wouldn't be fazed by anything I'd see among the entries. I was wrong.

Spending a long day sitting in a dark room viewing the fifty or so entries is a humbling experience. I thought I knew what had been happening in the last twelve months: Chechnya, East Timor, Ambon, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and Sierra Leone. But I had missed much of the strongest footage. Seeing the most graphic and immediate material in one concentrated ten-hour session was shocking and very moving.

What hit home so clearly viewing these remarkable reports was the barbarous randomness of today's wars. There are no clear frontlines. The dangers come from ill-disciplined militias. Nothing is predictable. Which, of course, is why the spine-chilling deaths of Miguel Gil Moreno and Kurt Schork are so troubling. They were not considered to be in a particularly dangerous area of Sierra Leone when they were tragically ambushed.

It made me think about the extraordinary risks being taken by the cameramen and women whose work we were watching. These brave people were producing harrowing pictures, often stunningly shot, from extremely precarious situations.

In our judging we debated notions of comparative heroism. For whom does one feel the greater respect - the indigenous cameraman or the international war globetrotter? Someone like Fredi Selano has given up his job and risks his life to document how ethnic rivalry is tearing apart his homeland of Ambon. How does one compare his commitment with that of an experienced professional like Max Stahl who was prepared to stay behind in East Timor after the UN pulled out and the militia moved in? There are no obvious answers and the judging for these awards was very difficult.

We also considered the charge that giving an award for brave camerawork is counter-productive, that awards like these encourage freelancers to push themselves beyond the limits of reasonable behaviour, that it undermines the Trust's aim of being an effective advocate for the greater safety of freelance camera people.

We understood but rejected this argument. What drove these committed people to record the world's horrors was not the prospect of winning a gong.

It was obvious that these filmmakers had one thing in common; a burning desire to use the camera to bear witness to atrocity, war, injustice, and wrongdoing. They were driven by a conviction to tell the story as it happens, to capture what's happening in its most immediate sense, and to convey this to a worldwide public. This year's finalists have produced outstanding work.

Recognising this through these awards does not encourage risk-taking, but honours a journalistic commitment that should command our greatest respect.

Award sponsored by

Brochure sponsored by

• Winners
• Finalists and Special Commendations
• The Freelancers' Choice
  
  
• Programme
• From the Chairman
• The Trust in 2000
• No Clear Frontlines
• Judging Panel
• List of Entrants
• News From the Edge
• Acknowledgements

The Trust | Awards | Training | The Free Lens | Links | Feedback | Home

Limited Company No. 35524586 Registered in England and Wales
Charity Reg. No. 1071844