At the closing night of the 7th International Al Jazeera Balkans Documentary Film Festival (AJB DOC), organized by Al Jazeera Balkans in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the documentary “Holy Redemption”, prepared under difficult conditions by the TRT World Research Team, was deemed worthy of the “Best Documentary and Program Award”.
At the award ceremony held on the last night of the festival, of which Anadolu Agency is the Global Communications Partner, the award was given to the documentary “Holy Occupation”, directed and produced by Jose Carlos Soares, Tanju Şahin and Aslıhan Eker Çakmak, and shot by the TRT World Research Team after a difficult process of infiltrating radical Israeli groups in the West Bank, 2 months after the Gaza genocide that began on October 7.
TRT Deputy General Manager Ömer Faruk Tanrıverdi, who attended the ceremony, stated that they dedicated the award to the Palestinian people.
Tanrıverdi said, “With the screening of our documentary in Sarajevo, we emphasized that another genocide is taking place before the eyes of the world in these lands where the pain of Srebrenica is still fresh.”
Explaining that they exposed Israel’s occupation policies that have been continuing for 75 years in 53 minutes and reflected the oppression of radical Israeli occupiers in Palestine in all its reality on the screen, Tanrıverdi said that TRT World received an award in the “News and Current Affairs” category at the International Emmy Awards in 2023 with its documentary “Ukraine War Diaries”.
Tanrıverdi said, “This award is more meaningful to us than the Emmy Award we received before because our aim was to raise global awareness of the genocide in Palestine with our documentary.”
Çakmak also pointed out that the award was an indication of the strong message the documentary wanted to convey, and expressed his hope that the documentary would become the voice of Palestine.
Şahin also stated that the world turned a blind eye to the genocide that took place in Srebrenica 30 years ago, just like it does in Gaza today, and that he received the award for all Palestinian children, those who lost their lives in the West Bank, and especially for activist Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, who was killed by an Israeli sniper in the West Bank.
The TRT team stated that the documentary “Holy Occupation”, which shows how the Palestinian lands were occupied step by step, will continue to be shown on international platforms, and announced that the documentary will be broadcast on TRT’s international channels and digital platforms on September 18 at 20:00 Turkish time.
Documentaries about Palestine were shown
The documentary “Smiling Georgia” directed by Luka Beradze was also deemed worthy of an award at the festival in Sarajevo.
Obada Albaghdadi’s documentary “Al-Shifa Hospital: The Crimes They Tried to Bury” was screened at the closing night of the festival.
AJB DOC Director Edhem Foco said that the participation in the festival was high and they were very pleased with it.
The award ceremony was also attended by Sadık Babür Girgin, the Turkish Ambassador to Sarajevo, and Abdurezaq Namoora, the Palestinian Ambassador to Sarajevo.
The AJB DOC, which started on September 13, covered the suffering of the Palestinian people due to Israeli attacks, and many documentaries about Palestine met with the audience.
The festival featured 24 documentary films about Israel’s violence against Palestinians, as well as world economic and political turmoil.
The festival also held an Industry Days program, and panels on documentaries and their production were held.
