Founder and Executive Director of the United Nations Association Film Festival (UNAFF)
Paris, May 24, 2014
JASMINA BOJIC, Founder and Executive Director of the United Nations Association Film Festival (UNAFF), has been awarded UNESCO's Fellini Medal.
The International Council for Film, Television and Audiovisual Communication (ICFT) presented at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) headquarters in Paris the UNESCO Fellini Medal to Jasmina Bojic, Founder and Executive Director of the United Nations Association Film Festival (UNAFF), in recognition of her exceptional contribution in promoting the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights through the art of documentary film.
The Federico Fellini Medal was created by UNESCO in 1994 to recognize major contributions to the international film heritage, its promotion and preservation.
The first Fellini Medal was awarded to the President of the Cannes Film Festival, Pierre Voit, and over the years it had many distinctive recipients, among them Gerard Depardieu, Vanessa Redgrave, Clint Eastwood, Abbas Kiarostami, Im Kwon taek, Lester James Peries, Pierre Rissient and Jerome Clement, President of the Franco-German TV channel ARTE.
The medal itself was designed in 1994 by the Italian artist Valerio Adami, as homage to the Italian Maestro Federico Fellini, who passed away the year before. UNESCO's Fellini Medal was first presented at the 48th Cannes Film Festival (1994), which was also the occasion of the Centenary of the creation of cinema.
Jasmina Bojic, who is also a film critic and educator at Stanford University, was informed of the award in April during the InfoPoverty Conference at the UN in New York, while the Fellini Medal was officially presented to her in May at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris.
Presenting the award, the ICFT stated, "Over the years UNAFF has become a highly regarded platform for intrepid documentaries with a stellar reputation with filmmakers and audiences alike. Through the "Camera As Witness" program, which Ms. Bojic created at Stanford University, UNAFF and its films have become an invaluable tool in the education process as well.
"For the last 15 years UNAFF has also offered a Traveling Film Festival, which has spread the reach of its documentary films through dozens of communities, cooperating with other Festivals, Universities and Organizations.
"The four films presented at the UNAFF Traveling Film Festival during the UN InfoPoverty Conference in New York are of the highest quality, both from the point of view of content and of cinematographic aesthetic. In addition, there is a concurrence between the UNAFF and the ICFT's objectives as well as UNESCO's mandate in this field.
"It is a real lesson to the media, and the ICFT wishes to develop this vision of a world that is more and more essential for intercultural dialogue and mutual understanding.
"The ICFT hopes that the UNAFF will continue to develop this line of action and to be recognized in the world that has an ever greater need for moral values."