Announcing the Winners of
The 2021 Rory Peck Awards
On Tuesday 16th November, the Rory Peck Awards returned to a live event format at the BFI Southbank. Attended by an influential audience from the international media industry, the Awards highlighted and celebrated outstanding freelance journalists from around the world.
November 17, 2021.
The News Features Award went to Brent E. Huffman for Uyghurs Who Fled China Now Face Repression in Pakistan, commissioned by VICE News, for his inspiring and heart breaking film about the Chinese government’s brutal crackdown of Uyghur Muslims. Producer-Director Brent E. Huffman traveled to Pakistan five times over a four-year period to gain the trust of a vulnerable community of Uyghurs in hiding there.
His film was praised by the judges as “solid journalism with a beating heart – the clearest telling of a complex story I have ever seen.”
The Sony Impact Award for Current Affairs was won by Joshua Baker for Return From ISIS: A Family’s Story commissioned by BBC and Frontline. His film tells the extraordinary story of one family’s journey from a small town in America to the heart of ISIS and back.
The judges said: “A brilliant piece of work that worked on so many levels other than just exposition. The commitment to the story and investment in the journalism was remarkable.”
The News Award, sponsored by Google News Initiative, was awarded to Solan Kolli for his film The Cost of War: coverage of Ethiopia’s Tigray conflict, commissioned by AFP. Solan is part of the AFP team that was the first independent media to reach Tigray after the government’s military operation began.
The judges said his work was “bold and brave” and called it “a powerful and sober approach to what was happening in Tigray”.
The Martin Adler Prize, supported by the Embassy of Sweden, was awarded to Riana Raymonde Randrianarisoa, a freelance investigative journalist based in Madagascar. The Martin Adler Prize honours a local freelance journalist or field producer whose work with international media outlets has made a significant contribution to newsgathering.
The Prize Jury said: “She gives a fascinating look at the underbelly of Madagascar – a place most people just see as a beautiful tropical isle. She lays bare the dark side of the country at considerable risk to herself.”