Two Documentaries Share 2017 Healthy Workplaces Film Award
One is from the United States, about automation's effect on the future of humanity, and the other is from Turkey.
A U.S. firm and one from Germany are the two winners of EU OSHA's 2017 Healthy Workplaces Film Award for the best film on the subject of work. The winners are Lewis Wilcox, director of "Before the Bridge" (USA) and Tuna Kaptan for "Turtle shells" (Germany). The awards were presented by the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) at the 60th International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film, the agency announced this month.
"Before the Bridge" was made to raise awareness of how automation will affect the future of humanity. The jury said about this film: "Fast moving technological and social changes in the world affecting us all and our vision of the future of work," according to EU OSHA's release. It described "Turtle shells" as a multi-perspective film exploring the connections between animal, man, and war, with the jury saying it is "a complex and poetic discussion of dramatic turmoil in the contemporary world: war, migration, and cruelty, which synthesises the unexpected, including our relation to the animal world."
The jury gave a special mention to the film "Alien" by Morteza Atabaki (Turkey) about an old man working in a thread workshop.
Through the award, EU-OSHA said it hopes to build a library of films to raise awareness of OSH issues and to inspire directors to create more films on the subject of work, its changing nature, and its effects on workers and their environment.
The winning directors are sharing a prize of 5,000 euros (about $5,900 in U.S. dollars). Subtitled DVD copies of their films will be distributed to EU-OSHA's national focal points throughout Europe for screening, with subtitling as required. The agency said documentaries shortlisted for the award this year covered everything from the struggles of small farmers in the United Kingdom to hazards faced by workers in a high-altitude Bolivian mining camp and work inside a large Indian textile factory.