Congratulations
Cicely Fell, Charles Maynes & Falling Tree Productions
for The Grand Prix Marulić in Documentary category!
UNITED KINGDOM – Falling Tree Productions
LOOPING SWANS
Title in English: Looping Swans
Producers: Cicely Fell, Charles Maynes
Sound engineer: Peregrine Andrews
Original language: English
Duration: 27’30”
When tanks rolled into Moscow on 19 August 1991 during a dramatic anti-Perestroika coup by Soviet hardliners, the USSR’s state-controlled airwaves offered a curious response – a continuous loop of Tchaikovsky’s ‘Swan Lake’.
A tsarist-era ballet, of all things, served as the balm for the revolution underway.
Yet most Soviets weren’t fooled. A series of deaths by recent Soviet premiers – all greeted by broadcasts of the regime’s beloved Swans on television – had taught Russians to view Tchaikovsky’s classic as far more than art.
It was a harbinger for political wrangling deep inside the Kremlin.
Amid the dancing and pirouettes on a grainy screen,
Russians saw hidden choreography affecting their lives and country.
Tchaikovsky’s swans had become canaries in the coalmine, sparking mass protests that brought an end to the Soviet empire.
A quarter of a century on, this programme traces the strange and elaborate pas de deux between Tchaikovsky’s ballet classic and the Russian psyche – revealing how a work considered a flop upon its premiere ricocheted through Russian history to emerge a powerful instrument of Soviet propaganda, and – later – a soundtrack that failed to disguise impending political turmoil.
A mosaic of Russian voices recall their impressions of the swans through a richly layered tale of ‘looped reporting’ and encounters, rare archival audio, contemporary interviews and digital mash-ups to chronicle how ‘Swan Lake’ has shaped the history of modern Russia and – even now – emerged as a powerful political meme in the Putin era.
Congratulations
Rikke Houd
for The Grand Prix Marulić in Short forms category!
DENMARK – Rikke Houd
The Kayakman*
Title in English: The Kayakman
*the archival material used is from the Danish Folklore Archives
Author: Rikke Houd
Producer: Rikke Houd
Director: Rikke Houd
Sound engineers: Rikke Houd, Mike Woolley
Other key staff: Eleanor McDowall/Falling Tree, Lisbeth Burian/White out
Original music score: Mark Solborg
Original language: Eastern Greenlandic & English
Duration: 10′
The Kayakman is a story about trying to capture stories of place and of time, about re-discoveringand connecting stories over time, about losing them too.
The Eastern Greenlandic tale ofthe Kayak-man is told in different epochs and layers: an early archive recording of the great hunter Koitse telling the legend of a man-eating woman, the story about the linguist William Thalbitzer who caught Koitse´s words with his cylinder phonograph in 1905 and present day recordings from Eastern Greenland.
Congratulations
Bernard Clarke (RTE)
for The Grand Prix Marulić in Drama category!
IRELAND – RTÉ lyric fm
TERRIBLE BEAUTY
Title in English: Terrible Beauty
Author: Bernard Clarke
Producer: Aodán O’Dubhghaili
Director: Bernard Clarke
Sound engineer: Bernard Clarke
Original language: English
Duration: 57’31”
Terrible Beauty is a hybrid of radio drama and memoir, docu-drama and sound design.
The script is based on Gerald Doyle’s military memoir.
The drama depicts young Doyle’s experiences in the Easter Rising of 1916; his summons as a volunteer; marching and securing of a position of a strategic bridge; terror when under a savage attack by a massive British force; arrest; march and abuse by a hostile local populace; fear in captivity-beatings, physical and psychological abuse by his captors; his court martial; his witnessing of the executions of the leaders by firing squad; and banishment and exile in England.
The events depicted in the memoir stretch from 1914 to 1917.
The actual written witness testament dates from 1921. The document is online and in full here:
http://www.bureauofmilitaryhistory.ie/reels/bmh/BMH.WS1511.pdf
IFC AudioDocs 