ELIZABETH JONES (Canadian-British)
for
Egypt: Seeds of Change
Shot in Egypt, January-February 2011
Pear Productions for Aljazeera English

Scroll down to see a video extract from Elizabeth's entry. 

Elisabeth's film chronicles the first ten days of the Egyptian revolution from inside the secret headquarters of the people who planned it - the leaders of the April 6th Movement. 

We see the activists plan and execute their strategies to overthrow President Hosni Mubarak as the protests gather momentum in the streets below. Elizabeth Jones was the only journalist inside the April 6th offices on Friday January 28th, the day the revolution really took hold and hundreds of thousands took to the streets.  In the chaotic days that followed she was threatened and held by security forces. Her camera was taken. The April 6th offices themselves were raided and trashed - the activists fled underground or were arrested.

With no contacts and no camera Elizabeth was forced to return home. The film was broadcast a few days later.

The judges thought the film gave the inside track on some of the most important days in recent history. One said it gave a sense of "living the revolution as it was taking place."  Another said: "She seems to know instinctively who to focus the camera on and who to stay with. This is wonderful work which really takes us inside the story."

BIOGRAPHY
Elizabeth Jones has been a freelance journalist for most of her career.  This is the sixth time she has been a Rory Peck finalist. Her early work, particularly in central Africa, was mostly self-funded or paid for by charitable friends.  Her first self-funded documentary, proving that Hutu militias were training in UN camps in Zaire, was a finalist in the first year of the Rory Peck Awards in 1995.  Since then she has sought to balance commissioned work for broadcasters with independent projects on stories she feels are under-reported.