UNESCO - audiovisual e-platform

The UNESCO Centre of Catalonia, partner and manager of the UNESCO Audiovisual E-Platform, has participated in the last days in a round table with Al Jazeera Documentary Channel in the framework of the Festival Cines del Sur -Cinemas from the South-. "Documentaries face some difficulties in the Arab region since they are not that popular", commented in his introduction Montaser Marai, Head of the Al Jazeera Documentary Channel. "Therefore, the Al Jazeera Documentary Channel tries to give a platform to the Arab documentaries and to promote this product among the audience and viewers", he explained. Responsibility is something that Al Jazeera emphasizes often and in that regard, and questioned about the importance of the share and audience figures in the programming, Marai commented that "we know that documentaries are hardly lucrative but we have a responsibility as communicators and with this regard, we should know that there will be some products which will be more succesful than others among viewers". In this line, Rut G. Sobrino, Head of the Audiovisual Department at the UNESCO Centre of Catalonia, said that "it is precisely this responsibility and not the commercial gains what links the UNESCO philosophy with the social, educative and cultural goals of Al Jazeera, so needed in the Arab region". These needs covered by Al Jazeera, in various fields, but especially in that referred to freedom of information and expression, have shown the importance of Al Jazeera as a phenomenon in the cultural, educative, economic and social spheres. Nearly 90 films have been presented in the Cines del Sur Festival, one of the most exciting and prestigious festivals in the field of social cinema. The first award of the Festival, the Golden Alhambra, which consisted of 50,000 Euro, was conceded to the movie "The Other Bank" (Georgia/Kazajstán, 2009) by the Director George Ovashvili. This movie will be available in the UNESCO Audiovisual E-Platform in the coming days. The second award, the Silvered Alhambra, with 30,000 Euro, was given to the movie "Before the Burial" (Iran, 2008) by the Iranian director Behnam Behzadi. Finally, the Bronzed Alhambra, with 15.000 Euro, was awarded to "Jalainur" (China, 2008) by the director Zhao Ye. Apart from the awards, there were other type of activities such as training, seminars and conferences of prestigious international filmmakers.