Amnesty International Media Awards

I’m still processing last nights Amnesty International Media awards, for which duckrabbit was nominated in the New Media category.  Many of the organizations nominated, including CNN, The Guardian, The Observer and the BBC commented that for them it is the most important awards of all. The one they really want in the trophy cabinet.

To tell you the truth once the ceremony started I just sat there feeling really depressed. Hollowed out by the whole experience.  There was me selfishly wanting to win when some of the people duckrabbit’s work has covered are still living desperate lives.

The awards also hammered home how far humanity has progressed, how much we’ve learned, how much suffering there still is, and how little we really care.  Its a thought process that opens up a long dark tunnel many conscientious people follow all the way to their death.

Its a terrible world to live in if you actually feel things isn’t it? Terrible and yet often unspeakably beautiful and poignant.

One  beautiful moment happened last night when the award for best consumer magazine was announced. It went to the New Statesman for a campaign that they ran highlighting the huge numbers of children who are interned in Britain’s immigration detention centers.   Alice O’ Keefe, a young journalist at the New Statesman, whose experience visiting one of the centers sparked the campaign, was visibly moved.   You could tell just how much this meant to her, not because she won the award, but because she cared so much about the people, the children whose stories she has been telling. Just goes to show that you can’t really care too much about other people.  One way or another the love will flow back.

I know how Alice feels.  Many years ago I won an award for a documentary I made about parents whose children had been murdered. I remember bursting into tears when the award was announced. I was a right mess. I’d ended up caring so much about the people I interviewed, far beyond what you would consider ‘professional’.  The next day I gave the trophy to John Suffield, whose son had been tortured to death in a betting shop in Liverpool. The award meant a lot to him.. Likewise if we’d won the Amnesty award it would have winged its way to Kenya as a sign that I’m still thinking about and touched by the people whose lives I shared there last year.

Finally congratulations to all the winners for their incredible and inspiring work and also to the indefatigable and ever cheerful Sarah Ross who did a stunning job of organising the event.