Get to know the Masters of this year’s Åke Blomström Masterclass @ PRIX EUROPA 2024
Léa Chatauret
"Open Hearts" - Arte Radio
After studying sociology and political science, Léa Chatauret entered INSAS, a film school in Belgium. Since then, she has worked on documentary films and auteur fiction. Most of these films have been shown at major festivals (Cinéma du réel, IDFA, Nyon, Venice).
At the same time, she is developing her podcast work, with Arte Radio, Louie media. "Open Hearts", her latest podcast on Arte Radio, won the PRIX EUROPA Best European Audio Single Documentary of the Year 2023 and a special mention at the "Longueur d'ondes" festival.
Andrew Harding
"Blood Lands" - BBC
Andrew Harding is an author and foreign correspondent who has spent the past three decades living and working in Africa, Asia, and the former Soviet Union. His books and his reporting for BBC News have won him international recognition.
Andrew travelled to the collapsing Soviet Union in 1991 to seek work as a freelance journalist. He reported on the chaos of Yeltsin’s Russia and both Chechen wars. He lived for a time in Tbilisi, Georgia, before moving back to Moscow as a BBC correspondent. He then moved to Nairobi in 2000 as the BBC’s East Africa correspondent, and four years later to Singapore as the BBC’s Asia correspondent, where he covered the tsunami and reported undercover from Burma. In 2009 he moved to Johannesburg as the BBC’s Africa correspondent.
Andrew has written three acclaimed non-fiction novels.: The Mayor of Mogadishu / These Are Not Gentle People, tracked an explosive double murder case in a South African farming community wracked by poverty and racial tensions. His series on the case won the PRIX EUROPA 2021 Best European Radio Investigation of the Year with the programme ‘Blood Lands’.
After fifteen years living in South Africa, Andrew recently moved to France as the BBC’s Paris correspondent. He is married and has three grown-up sons.
Ole Martin Hafsmo
"Shit Town, Trondheim"
Ole Martin Hafsmo graduated from the Norwegian Film school in 2002 as a film director. He has specialised in comedy and directed a wide variety of genres and formats, such as tv-dramas, tv-series, feature film and commercials. He has also directed a lot of musical comedy, most notable with Norwegian comedy duo Ylvis.
«Shit Town, Trondheim» is his first radio documentary. It tells the story of his mother, Berit Hafsmo who lives arround the poverty line in Trondheim, Norway’s third largest city. She lives in a council flat in a district called «Skitbyen» (literally «Shit Town»), life is tough but she is an irrepressible optimist. The series received the award PRIX EUROPA Best European Audio Documentary Series of the Year.
Inga Lizengevic
"Babies For the World" - Deutschlandfunk/ORF/SWR
Inga Lizengevic has Belarusian-Ukrainian roots and lives as a radio author in Berlin. Her feature film "Three Countries - My Threefold Split Personality" (SWR 2016) was shortlisted for the n-ost Reportagepreis 2017, for her feature "Babies For the World. The Business with Ukrainian Surrogate Mothers" (Deutschlandfunk/SWR/ORF 2021) she was awarded the Prix Italia 2022 and nominated for the PRIX EUROPA 2023. Thought Crime in Belarus. When Dystopias Come to Life" (Deutschlandfunk Kultur 2022) was nominated for Prix Marulic 2024. Most recently: "And on Thursday There Was War. Russia's Attack on Ukraine" (Deutschlandfunk/ORF 2023)