AV News Magazine | Page 14

AV News 193 - August 2013 The 3rd Liliane Dorikens Prize 2013 & Belgian AV festivals Maurice Dorikens MFIAP HonEFIAP After the International Festival of Mechelen came to an end there was in Flanders no real international festival until we had our three Flanders Image Festivals (FIF2006, 2008 and 2010). These were festivals upon invitation and with a jury to award a number of prizes. Parallel with these we had for more than 15 years a DCB member contest. That developed into a well known national event. It became known abroad and we had some requests to open it for non-Belgians. That ended in 2013 in the third Liliane Dorikens Prize with a participation of Belgium, Netherlands, Great Britain and France, totalling 74 entries. A national jury had a 12 hours (non public) session to sort it out and to award 10 prizes. A total of 25 sequences were accepted (out of 74). The very severe selection was in part due to the limited projection time for the gala, but mainly because we wanted to set a high standard for future events and to be on an international level (for eventually maybe FIAP patronage - the selection for the 2013 festival was below FIAP acceptance recommendations - the (un)famous 50% rule). Never the less the results of the festival were widely well received and confirmed us in the decision to set the same high international standard for future events. The full results are shown on www.avnews.org.uk with the top awards listed below. You will notice that quite some excellent UK sequences were among the prize-winners. Since Belgians love English (and French) sequences and since we have no language problems it is normal that the foreign entries are the overall winners of the festival. Further more the English documentary-style is a guarantee for success in Belgium. On the other hand the French production of essays is hard to beat, so they end up high in the ranking. And the question of making a choice between them is almost impossible and more a question of personal feelings. So we tried to give a clear description for each of the prizes (and not just 'medal of so and so'). We do not treat these as 'categories' because there will always be one category more than those mentioned in the 'rules' (and the too-muchFrench-inspired FIAP entry form). By doing so we are not tied by strict ruling but can approach this with an open mind. Page 12