Archive notice: This article was originally published on November 28, 2008. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
The award is presented in three categories: the “Impact Award” for particularly memorable humanitarian contributions that draw attention to urgent problems; the “Rory Peck Award for Features” for reports that illuminate the background to current news; and the “Rory Peck Award for Hard News” for contributions that initiated immediate reporting.
This year’s Sony-sponsored Impact Award went to Korean journalists Jung In Taek and Han Yong Ho for their documentary Korea: Out of the North, about refugees from North Korea. In the Features category, Tim Hetherington received the award for The Other War, his compelling report on the everyday lives of soldiers in Afghanistan. In the “Hard News” category, the jury honored Abdullahi Farah Duguf’s film Two Weeks in Mogadishu.
The Sony-honored film Korea: Out of the North was shot over ten months under extremely difficult conditions in a politically divided country. During filming, which took place mostly at night, Jung In Taek and Han Yong Ho constantly risked discovery and arrest. Under these extreme conditions, the journalists captured stark and shocking images: refugees crossing the border river naked; the body of a woman who had frozen to death in the ice; and images of North Korean street children. The film addresses a political issue that had been silenced for many years in both South and North Korea and was brought to public attention thanks to the journalists’ efforts.
Tim Hetherington’s feature The Other War shows the difficult everyday lives of US soldiers stationed in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley. Hetherington took part in their daily lives and captured rare footage, including soldiers attempting to make peace with a village elder in Taliban-controlled regions. The cameraman himself was injured in a Taliban attack that killed three soldiers.
The report Two Weeks in Mogadishu depicts the violence, destruction and human suffering of daily life in Mogadishu. Abdullahi Farah Duguf captured harrowing images of street fighting and himself became a target of the violence. During filming, he received several threats from the government and its opponents and was eventually forced to seek refuge in Djibouti.
