Webinar held on 8 March 2021, 11:00 - 12:30 CET during CIRCOM's Learning From A Global Pandemic week-long programme of interactive Zoom sessions, 8 - 12 March 2021

The climax of the CIRCOM week “Learning From a Global Pandemic” featured an illustrious panel of former winners of the Prix CIRCOM, hosted by the President of the Prix CIRCOM David Lowen.

The session began with last year’s winner of the Grand Prix, Léa Zilber, talking about the motivation and approach to making her RTBF film Street Tease (Ma Rue Couche-toi Là), a film described by David as being “absolutely packed with fascinating characters and personal stories”. Léa explained that her approach is simple - telling stories, and listening to people tell their stories: “The story that people know best is their own story”.

Croatian filmmaker Daniela Draštata, who has been the recipient of several awards, and has also been a Prix CIRCOM judge, reinforced this point, saying her approach is “all about honesty. Every time we do something, we spend five or ten times more time without the camera with our main characters”.

The third member of the panel, video journalist Ben Moore from the BBC’s South of England region, described the way he uses non-intrusive production kit to create intimacy, and get the best out of contributors, either a small DSLR camera rig or even his iPhone - “everybody has one of these, they’re not threatening. If someone turns up at your house to interview you, with lights, microphone, three members of a camera crew, and big tripods, and take over your living room, you’re not always going to get the best from them.”

David offered his own insight, from the perspective of the CIRCOM judging panel, on what makes a winning entry - so anyone with the ambition to enter the competition should watch the session back and try to incorporate some of the tools and techniques into their next entry!