Czech Radio among the Three Winners of the Ake Blomstrom Memorial Prize / 35th International Feature Conference Dublin 2009
Czech Radio is one of this years three winners of the annual Ake Blomstrom Memorial Prize, announced within the International Feautre Conference (IFC) 2009. The competition is open to young radio documentary makers and feature makers, within the age limit of 35 years.
There were a total of twenty foreign radio feature makers participating in this years annual competition. Tomas Cerny, representing Czech Radio with his programme "Cabin without Service", has been selected as one of the three winners.
The International Feature Conference is taking place 9 - 14 May 2009 in Dublin with the support of Irish Radio RTÉ. Its main aim is to gather radio feature makers and documentary makers from all over the world to study and discuss individual radio documents and its specific aspects.
"Cabin without Service" is inspired by the launch of the ship Hermes on the river Vltava in Prague, which is providing accommodation and basic services for homeless people. "I thought it might be interesting to present several short episodes that together create a vivid audio image of a world where most of us would not want to belong to," says the author, Tomas Cerny, and continues "Encounters with homeless people are framed by an interview with the manager of the facility, which is run by charitable organisation Nadeje. We talk in general about the phenomenon of homelessness, specific problems of the homeless, their "social suicide" when they exclude themselves from the society, and about their ambitions to live a better life."