European producers are well represented in the shortlist for this year’s Focal International Awards, with French and Spanish companies both included in the prestigious Factual production category.

Julie Lewis, the general manager of Focal International, revelled in the strong showing from production companies outside the UK but acknowledged that the Brits still dominate in certain areas.

“There is stiff competition in the Best use of Footage in a Factual production category with three titles from France being shortlisted and two from Spain. [But] the BBC alone have produced 11 of the shortlisted titles overall, and it is the UK in general that dominates the Best use of Footage in the Entertainment and Arts/Music categories.”

The shortlist for Best Use of Footage in Factual Productions:

  • A Wall in Berlin (Un Mur à Berlin) - Kuiv Productions (France)
  • Crude Britannia: The Story of North Sea Oil – BBC (UK)
  • Dear Elena Francis (Querida Dona Elena) – Televisio de Catalunya (Spain)
  • Franco and Fidel: An inconvenient Friendship  - Televisio de Catalunya (Spain)
  • Iran and the West - Brook Lapping Productions (UK) - pictured
  • JFK 3 Shots That Changed America - New Animal Productions Productions (USA) 
  • Monsieur Advertising: Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet  - Artline Films (France)
  • The Lost World of Communism – BBC (UK)
  • Under the Banners (Sous les Drapeaux) - AMIP (France)

In the ‘Entertainment Production’ category Harry Hill’s TV Burp will battle it out with The Great British Foreign Holiday and The Most Annoying People of 2009 in an all UK shoot-out.

The Focal International Awards shortlist in full.

This year’s Focal International Awards received more than 160 submissions from 20 countries.

The winners will be announced on 27 April 2010 at the Lancaster London Hotel.

During the ceremony Lord Melvyn Bragg will lead a tribute to the work carried out by professional film archive researchers during more than 30 years of the South Bank Show.

Focal International is a trade body representing footage archives, professional footage researchers, consultants and facility houses

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