Since 2003 the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights has been awarding documentary filmmakers with the festival prize for excellent achievement in showing human rights in film.
In 2006 the Board of the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights decided to name this prize with the name of Marek Nowicki (1947 - 2003), cofounder and for many years the President of the Foundation, cofounder of the Helsinki Committee in Poland.
This year the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights awards the Marek Nowicki festival prize to:
Viktar Dashuk
The winner of this year's Marek Nowicki Prize, Viktar Dashuk, is the legendary Belarusian filmmaker. It would be difficult to find a filmmaker more deserving of a prize for "excellent achievements in showing human rights in film." Mr. Dashuk graduated from Minsk University and studied directing under Andrei Tarkovsky. He has directed over 100 documentary and feature films. Most of his films have been produced in the Belarusian state film studio, Belarusfilm, from which he was fired two years after Lukashenka took power. Since then, Dashuk has produced seven protest documentaries in his own independent (and, of course, illegal) film studio, Spadar D (‘Mr. D'). His films have made regular appearances in the WATCH DOCS repertoire since 2002. They provide an unflinchingly candid, bitter, and in-depth image of Europe's last remaining dictatorship. Under police surveillance for years, Dashuk continues to create new films that expose the true face of the Lukashenka regime. His latest, "The Kingdom of Dead Mice" opens this year's festival and fits perfectly with the repertoire of this ninth edition of WATCH DOCS. It would make for an excellent addition to nearly every one of this year's festival retrospective or permanent sections, ranging from the "Discreet Charm of Propaganda," "Close-up" - devoted this year to post-Soviet states, through "Candid camera - underground documentary" as it is clearly a film produced in secret from state authorities. It is our great pleasure to invite you to the screenings of our laureate's latest documentary with the hope that his next premiere will take place legally - in Minsk.
