On November 24, the awards gala for the 2
nd
annual
Adami Media Prize for Cultural Diversity in Eastern Europe
will take place in Kyiv, Ukraine. The prize was founded by its program director, Stefan Tolz, a freelance film director with many years of experience in Georgia, as well as in other countries of Eastern Europe. According to its website, “The ADAMI Media Prize was created to encourage audio-visual journalists and media professionals in the EU Eastern Partnership countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine) to cover the themes of migration, integration, and cultural diversity.”
Prizes are awarded in a number of categories, including Information (non-fiction), News and Short non-fiction, Youth, Web Videos, and Web Pages.
While the media prize is still in its infancy (this being only its second year running) Azerbaijanis – both citizens of Azerbaijan and ethnic Azerbaijanis living outside its borders – have already made a strong showing. Last year, in 2015, Oktay Namazov took home the ADAMI Media Prize for Web Videos, for his video titled “
30 Families of Griz
”.
This video highlights the mountain village of Griz, its people and their well-preserved rituals, traditions and language. Also in 2015, Ziad Aliev, a Georgian national, received special mention in the Online Video category for his YouTube series “
Kibatono
” (კიბატონო).
This year, in 2016, Muhammad Agha has been nominated in the Web Video category for the video “
Let There be Peace
” (Sülh Olsun). The video presents simple, short video clips of the faces and voices of citizens of various nations. In doing so, it addresses the need for peaceful conflict resolution and coexistence, and the role of nationalism in impeding such peaceful relations.
And finally, the video “
Forbidden Friends
”, produced by
Chai Khana
, has been nominated this year for the ADAMI Media Prize for Information (non-fiction). This video features two women: one an Azerbaijani journalist from Karabakh, forced to leave her home country because of her professional activities; the other, an ethnic Armenian, born and raised in Tbilisi. The film is about the struggles they face over a simple thing that ought to be celebrated, but is instead subject to controversy – their friendship. It is a film which powerfully counteracts the prevailing narratives of enmity and conflict between Armenians and Azerbaijanis by focusing on the beauty of simple, personal relations.
(embedded content removed)
Forbidden Friends
from
Chai Khana
on
Vimeo
.
Of course, beyond those works created by or featuring Azerbaijanis, there are many other wonderful works that were nominated and won prizes last year, and that have been nominated this year. They come from Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine – in short, from all the countries of the Eastern Partnership. And they highlight issues of relevance to the lives of people throughout the region, and to the human condition generally:
a teacher’s decision
to help his students learn the state language, and achieve success, or be with his pregnant wife; the
life story
of a 91 year-old nun, and the conflicts and upheavals she has witnessed – a story which likely reflects those of so many others in the region; and my favorite,
the pointed opinions
of a spirited young girl regarding national borders and the difficulties they cause for she and her family.
You can check out the website
here for more information
concerning this year’s contestants.
And whoever wins, it’s comforting to know that there are people doing their best to emphasize the need for diversity and coexistence in regions where the dominant narrative is too often one of enmity and divisiveness.
***
Ryan Wyeth is a writer and a geographer who has been living in Georgia on and off for the past 5 years while performing academic research. His recently-completed master’s thesis addressed the topic of water resources management in Georgia. Aside from this, he has worked in numerous fields, including translation, social research and grant writing. In his spare time, he has recently been working with his brother to develop a photoblog on their lives overseas,
which you can check out here.
