

FINALISTS (pdf) | SHORTLIST: R · T · D | 2025 COMPETITION
Jules Iddoh Ndema Ndema (CRTV, Cameroon), Pentti Väliahdet (YLE, Finland), Corinne Glowacki (FRANCE TÉLÉVISIONS, France), Jutta Krug (ARD, Germany), Andrea Marinari (HEARST, Italy), Gianni Vukaj (TV2000, Italy), Carlos Maio (RTP, Portugal), Alina Amza (TVR, Romania), Tshilidzi Davhana (SABC, South Africa), Barbara Seiler (SRG SSR, Switzerland), Tom Coveney (BBC, United Kingdom).
The President: Tshilidzi Davhana (SABC, South Africa).
Parce qu'elle était une femme (Because She Was a Woman)
Direction: Jean-François Ravagnan, Sylvie Chevalier. Coproducing Organisation: Triangle 7.
On October 20, 2007, Sadia Sheikh, a 20-year-old Belgian student of Pakistani origin, was shot multiple times by her older brother, Mudusar. He fled the scene, leaving his sister lying between life and death on the floor of the family home. The police immediately launched a manhunt for the killer. Two days later, Sadia succumbed to her injuries at the Charleroi hospital. Although the investigation initially considered the act to be isolated, a mosaic of evidence soon pointed to the spectre of an honour killing, a family conspiracy: Mudusar is believed to have acted not alone, but with the complicity of several family members, Sadia's younger sister, her father, and her mother.
Presented by: Jean-François Ravagnan, Director
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Originally from Belgium, Jean-François Ravagnan was trained at the Institut des Arts de Diffusion in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. Since 2007, he has worked as a first and second assistant director on about twenty films, notably those of Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne. In 2015, he directed his first short fiction film entitled "Renaître". Shot between Brussels and Tunis, the film was selected for the 68th Locarno Film Festival and received awards at several international festivals. Since 2018, Jean-François Ravagnan has been working on his first feature-length documentary, "The Last Shore", partly shot in Gambia and selected at the 56th Visions du Réel Festival in Switzerland. "Because She Was a Woman", a television documentary film co-directed with Sylvie Chevalier, marks his first collaboration with the Belgian public television channel as part of a documentary series. |
Riverboom
Direction: Claude Baechtold. Editing: Kevin Schlosser. Producers: Luc Peter, Katia Monla. Producing Organisation: Intermezzo Films. Coproducing Organisation: RTS Radio Télévision Suisse.
Afghanistan, 2002. Three young reporters get into a car for a reckless road trip to meet the Afghan people. Serge, a moralist and workaholic journalist, Paolo, a photographer as jovial as unconscious, and Claude, a coward Swiss typographer who improvises as a filmmaker.
Presented by: Claude Baechtold, Director
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Claude Baechtold was born in Lausanne to a Protestant mother who was a feminist pacifist and a father who was a lawyer and travel writer. After graduating from ECAL with a degree in visual communication, he became a photographer during a trip to Iran and then trained in reporting during the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq with reporters Serge Michel and Paolo Woods, with whom he founded the Riverboom collective. He developed an offbeat photographic style through visual travel guides to unlikely destinations, including the North Pole, which earned him the Grand Prix Images Vevey. An investigative journalist for the media outlet Heidi.news in Geneva, he is the co-author of an extensive investigation into the concrete industry, adapted into the comic book "Beton, enquête en sable mouvant" (Beton, investigation in quicksand). He is now a director but does not hesitate to pick up his pen again when a good story comes his way. "Riverboom" is his first feature film, which won the Jeanne Moreau Prize at the Premiers Plans d'Angers Festival, the Mitrani Prize at FIPADOC in Biarritz, and a special mention from the jury at the Cinémania Festival in Montreal. |
Hell Jumper
Direction: Paddy Wivell. Editing: Rupert Houseman. Producer: Adriana Timco. Executive Producer: Colin Barr. Producing Organisation: Expectation Entertainment
At the heart of the film is 28-year-old Chris Parry, who decided to jump into a van and head into Ukraine. There he hooked up with a bunch of civilian 'evacuators' from all over the world – so-called Hell Jumpers. Chris and friends would upload footage of their daring rescue missions or near misses to social media, as a way of raising money to fund their operations. But he also fell instantly in love with a young Ukrainian, Olya. Their burgeoning love story runs in parallel to the story of the teams of 'evacuators' that Chris joins, helping the old and the vulnerable escape from the most dangerous areas in the country. Hell Jumper gives us a uniquely modern perspective of war. It's a vivid portrait of an extraordinary group of civilian volunteers risking their lives to save strangers in their hour of need.
Presented by: Adriana Timco, Producer
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Adriana Timco is a British producer, based in London, born in Moldova. After graduating with an English degree from the University of Cambridge in 2011, she started her TV career in development working in both Documentaries and Drama. In the last ten years, she has developed a stream of ideas for British and international broadcasters, which include BBC Studio's BAFTA and Emmy award-winning series "Surgeon's Cut" for Netflix, the Netflix feature documentary "Trust No One: The Hunt for the Crypto King", and many others. Adriana left development in order to produce the deeply personal film "Hell Jumper", which she took to the BBC – a product of love, heartbreak and personal relationships she had nourished since the start of the war in Ukraine in 2022. She hopes to continue her career by pursuing extraordinary stories and quests of justice, steeped in hope, resilience, but also fun. She also writes in her spare time, hoping to publish her debut novel. |