The best of the best

Prize-giving ceremony in the Russian embassy, Unter den Linden, Berlin. (twb)

During the past year a universe of programmes and productions have been broadcast and published. 235 of them, the very best, made it into this year's competition, 5835 voting sheets and 29.175 ratings were processed. The juries have spoken. These are the best of the best.

Success makes you lonesome they say. That's rubbish of course. You came here alone, and you go home accompanied by a bull. Well done!

Category	Title	Country
TV documentary	"Meet the Fokkens"	Netherlands
TV fiction	"We'll Take Manhattan"	UK
TV fiction serial	"The Bridge"	Sweden
TV current affairs	"Permission to Engage"	Netherlands
TV Iris (best multicultural TV programme)	"Special Flight"	Switzerland
TV marketplace of innovation	"Basta"	Belgium
Prix Genève Europe (best TV fiction script)	"Inside"	Netherlands
Languages Through Lenses (students' short films on learning languages)	"Snow White"	Netherlands
Radio documentary	"Holiday for Life – European Dementia Patients in Care in Thailand"	Austria
Radio investigation	"Radio Simoom"	Sweden
Radio fiction	"Category 5: How I Rescued Fats Domino From Hurricane Katrina"	Switzerland
Radio fiction serial	"1-Minute Small"	Netherlands
Radio music (programmes on music)	"Warsaw Variations"	UK
Radio marketplace of innovation	"Hackney Hear"	UK
Online	"The Art of Pho"	Netherlands
Best online innovation	diy.fm – "Radio à la Carte"	Switzerland
Prix Europa lifetime achievement award	Prof. Regina Ziegler	Germany

Snow White

Just in case you do not understand: a) It's all about language learning. b) This blog is in English, Anglais, Englisch, Inglese.

Oh, and c) this short film was done by Wibout Warnaar and Jamille van Wijngaarden, two highly gifted young film makers from the Amsterdam University of  Arts.

Sesame street

"Sesame Street", NDR/ARD

"Sesamstrasse" is the ARD kids' programme about to celebrate its 40th birthday in 2013. Its new website "Sesame Street" ("Sesamstrasse", NDR/ARD) is aimed at preschoolers and meant to be educational and amusing at the same time. A talking navigaion, learning opportunities, educational games, tons of animations and mouseover effects: "Sesame Street", that funny world millions have grown up with, has gone online.

Catching the worm

"Early Birds", Vara, Netherlands

"The early bird catches the worm" (*) they say. "Early Birds" (Vara, Netherlands) is a large online platform for radio and TV shows, for user-generated content (both photos and videos), an interactive (Google-based) map, contests, the "green garden network" and Q&As about environmental matters and nature in general. Well, fresh.

(*) in German: "Der frühe Wurm hat einen Vogel."

Street art 2.0

"Défense d'afficher", France Télévisions

Street art can tell you a lot - about a country, an artist, and about life in general. "Défense d'afficher" (France Télévisions) is a web documentary about underground artists in eight cities around the world. Highly original and carefully crafted, "Défense d'afficher" provides a refreshing view on the making of what we seldom notice and hardly ever consider art.

Which of course is wrong.

Lessons in history

"Farewell Comrades!", Gebr. Beetz Filmproduktion Berlin,
ARD, ZDF

1991. The Cold War is over. "Farewell Comrades!" (Gebr. Beetz Filmproduktion Berlin, Arte, ZDF) was a six-part TV series backed up by a book project and web documentary taking the audience on an emotional journey through the former Soviet Union. It is a project about personal stories visualized by means of dozens of postcards written during the last 15 years of the USSR. Clicking a postcard will launch its writer's video portraits.

A remarkable web doc framed by extensive research: "Farewell Comrades!" is a thrilling history lesson on a former superpower, about everyday life in a country everyone thought it would last forever.

Transitions

"Transitions", DocAbout, Italy

"Transitions" (DocAbout, Italy) is about transgender men and women faced with discrimination wherever they go. The project ties TV and radio doc formats together and makes them a interactive fictional web series the storyline of which was determined by user votings. Touching but rather basic.