Special Commendations: (from the left) Gwynne Roberts, John Williams, Caludio Von Planta, R. Didit Haryadi, Ben Anderson, Rhys Williams

Ben Anderson 'Undercover Britain-Last Rights' - Britain

Ben Anderson is the first journalist to have gone undercover as an undertaker with a hidden camera. With barely any training he found himself driving a hearse and bluffing his way through his first funeral. This is a moving insight into the changing nature of the funeral business as big commercial organisations take over family run companies, leading to the dead being treated with less respect and more insensitivity. It is also a good example of how new technology meets the challenges of this kind of journalism.


R. Didit Haryadi 'Trisakti University Riot' - Indonesia

Haryadi was on the spot filming throughout the protests and riots which swept through Indonesia last May and forced President Suharto out of office. The piece submitted to the Rory Peck Award this year was broadcast on ABC (America) News and is remarkable footage showing clearly the sequence of events unfold before the cameraman's eyes as the demonstration at the University escalates out of control leading to clashes between students and police.


Gwynne Roberts 'Saddam¹s Secret Time Bomb' - Iraq

This documentary filmed for 'Dispatches' marked the 10th anniversary of the Iraqi poison gas attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja during the Iran/Iraq War. It took months of persuasion to get access to the region but finally, at considerable risk to all involved, Roberts and his colleagues Claudio von Planta and John Williams, accompanied by a leading British geneticist, crossed from Iran into Halabja in Iraqi Kurdistan to highlight the long term effects on the population of the chemical weapons used in the war.


Max Stahl 'Kosovo' - Kosovo

On an assignment part funded by the British Helsinki Human Rights Group and subsequently broadcast by Channel Four News, Max Stahl followed the developing crisis in Kosovo. In a three part story, shot on DV, Stahl¹s footage vividly illustrates the realities of a life dominated by conflict for the population on both sides of the province¹s ethnic divide. One piece focuses movingly on the plight of the thousands who have been forced to flee their homes because of the fighting or because of deliberate efforts at ethnic cleansing.


Rhys Williams 'Romania¹s Forgotten Children' - Romania

Remember the execution of Romania¹s dictator Nikolai Ceausescu in 1989? That event opened up Romania and Romania¹s orphanages to the world¹s media. Nearly ten years on, in footage aired by ITN's News at 10, Rhys Williams shows that the promised capitalism has not solved the problem of the underprivileged children. In fact the latest intake in the orphanages are not orphans but rather the children of parents who can either no longer afford or no longer want to keep them.