Georgian media projects win major prizes at ADAMI awards

Media reports and projects by Georgian creators won four of eight awards at this year's ADAMI Media Prize ceremony in Ukraine's capital Kiev on Thursday.

The prize was established to honour some of the best work by media professionals in European Union (EU) Eastern Partnership countries Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.

Award organisers said they wanted to promote media professionalism in these countries by "rewarding exemplary programs" on migration, integration and cultural diversity created for TV, online and other platforms.

A photograph from the series 'A Look Beyond the Headlines' by Georgian photographer Tako Robakidze.

On November 24 the 2016 annual awards ceremony singled out winners across five categories from a shortlist of 12 nominees.

The winners of this year's prizes were:

• ADAMI Media Prize for Information: Forbidden Friends by Nula Nula, Chai-Khana, Georgia;
• ADAMI Media Prize for News and Short non-Fiction: The Foreigner by Dmytro Lytvynenko, STB, Ukraine;
• Special Mention in News and Short non-fiction: Before Our Voting: Drastamat vs. Haykandukht: In-House Battle by Artak Vardanyan, Armenia;
• ADAMI Online Prize for Web Videos: A Look Beyond the Headlines by Tako Robakidze, Georgia;
• Special Mention in Web Videos: What is Hate Speech? by Ihar Nazaranka, Belarus;
• ADAMI Online Prize for Web Pages: My Angle by George Gogua, Georgia;
• Young ADAMI Media Prize: Generation Emigration by Natalia Sergheev, TV Moldova 1, Moldova;
• ADAMI Fellowship/ARTE prize: Marita Tevzadze, Georgia.

The winning projects and works dealt with a range of thought-provoking subjects including the legacy of the ethnic conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, stories of residents of the Pankisi Gorge in Georgia's north-east and mass emigration of Moldovan youth to Western Europe in search of better opportunities.

In addition, the newly launched ADAMI Fellowship/ARTE prize was awarded to Georgia's Marita Tevzadze and will give her an opportunity to work at the France-based Europe-wide cultural TV channel ARTE.

The ADAMI Prize awards were held on Thursday for the second year and was organised under the patronage of OSCE representative on Freedom of the Media Dunja Mijatovic and Council of Europe Secretary General Thorbjorn Jagland.

The full list of nominees for this year's awards can be found here.