Finalists announced for the Rory Peck Awards 2018

With films and footage from Bangladesh, the USA, Sudan, Iraq, Syria, Venezuela and the Mediterranean Sea, this year’s finalists explore poverty, race, conflict and exodus through nine very human – and some deeply personal – stories. Their outstanding work shows that freelancers are at the forefront of news and current affairs across the globe, despite increased threats.

Rory Peck Award for News, sponsored by Google

Veteran Bangladeshi freelancer AL-EMRUN GARJON receives a second Rory Peck nomination for his Associated Press footage capturing the long and dangerous exodus of thousands of Rohingya Muslims fleeing persecution and violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine State.

Syrian cameraman HUMAM HUSARI is shortlisted for a series of ITV News reports filmed from inside Eastern Ghouta which document the devastating toll on ordinary citizens caught in the fighting between rebels and government forces in February and March 2018.

Spanish videojournalist MIKEL KONATE is a finalist for his self-funded coverage of a complicated ten hour rescue mission in the Mediterranean Sea in July 2017. Distributed by Reuters, it reveals a harrowing migrant journey from the Libyan coast which resulted in the deaths of 15 men and women.

Rory Peck Award for News Features

Filipino videojournalist ORLANDO DE GUZMAN and American ZACH CALDWELL are joint finalists for Charlottesville: Race and Terror, broadcast by VICE News Tonight on HBO. Shot over 72 hours, the film goes behind the scenes with white nationalist leaders, alt-righters, and neo-Nazis attending the “Unite the Right” rally in August 2017 which left three people dead and many more injured.

American freelancer ROOPA GOGINENI is shortlisted for her unique New York Times film, The Rebel Puppeteers of Sudan, which tells the story of Sudan’s popular and darkly satirical puppet show, Bisha TV, created in response to the country’s civil war and the government’s crackdown on independent media.

Mexican photographer and filmmaker JAVIER MANZANO is a finalist for After Isis. Shot in Mosul in July 2017, his film follows several Iraqi Army units during their slow, hard battle to liberate the city from the group, often fighting for days on end and suffering horrendous casualties. Reported by Ben Anderson, the film was commissioned and broadcast by VICE on HBO.

Sony Impact Award for Current Affairs

Yemeni cameraman MOHAMMED AL-MEKHLAFI is a finalist for Conflict and Cholera: Yemen’s Catastrophe, shot for BBC Arabic. Mohammed travelled with reporter Nawal Al Maghafi from the country’s government-controlled west coast region to the Houthi-held north-west to report on what the UN has described as the largest humanitarian crisis in the world.

British/Peruvian freelance filmmaker ALEXANDER HOUGHTON is shortlisted for his Al Jazeera film Venezuela: Smuggling Dreams which tells the story of Jhan, a local Venezuelan fisherman trapped in a state of limbo and poverty in a small town along the Gulf of Paria, who sees an opportunity to provide for his daughter and diabetic father by joining the contraband trade.

DEEYAH KHAN and DARIN PRINDLE are finalists for their ITV Exposure documentary White Right: Meeting the Enemy which sees filmmaker Deeyah sitting face-to-face with fascists, racists and the proponents of the American “alt-right” in an attempt to get behind their violent ideology and extreme views.

The winners will be announced on Thursday 1st November at the Rory Peck Awards 2018 ceremony at London’s BFI Southbank, hosted by Sky News’ Special Correspondent Alex Crawford and BBC Middle East Editor Jeremy Bowen.

Tickets are on sale now with all proceeds supporting the work of the Rory Peck Trust.