4th International Video Journalism Award
Germany, Mainz november 28 and 29, 2008

The International VJ Awards, held annually, showcases the best of the
international Video Journalism community. With an expected submission of
over 1000 , the festival screens over 50 documentaries, short films, and
news reports. Now in its fourth year, the festival has grown into a
world-class event, uniting “VJ’s” with critics, scholars, (film, TV,
News masters), and the public.
The festival awards eight prizes:

international video journalism award

TV production – broadcast reports (2000 €)
A journalistic or documentary report with a maximum duration of 15
minutes, produced by one or more videojournalists/video reporters, and
which has already been broadcast.

independent video (2000 €)
A journalistic or documentary report with a maximum duration of 15
minutes, produced by one or more videojournalists/video reporters, but
which has not necessarily been broadcast.

german video journalism award

TV production - broadcast reports (2000 €)
A journalistic or documentary report with a maximum duration of 15
minutes, produced by one or more videojournalists/video reporters and
which has been aired by a German-language television channel (please
indicate the station and broadcast date). All genres.

independent video (2000 €)
A journalistic or documentary report with a maximum duration of 15
minutes, produced by one or more videojournalists/video reporters, but
which has not necessarily been broadcast.

Reportage (2500 €)
A feature report in the German language with a minimum duration of 15
minutes and a maximum duration of 29 minutes, produced by one or more
video journalists/video reporters, but which has not necessarily been
broadcast.

newcomer video journalism award (1000 €)
A journalistic or documentary report with a maximum duration of 15
minutes, produced by one or more videojournalists/video reporters. The
applicants must be under 28 years of age or currently enrolled in
an institution of higher education. Those productions will be considered
for awards whose appeal lies in a unique style of content or
cinematography and indicate a great potential for the applicant.

online and audience prize (500 €)
Video journalism is one aspect of a global movement. In view of this
fact, all entered videos that fulfill the eligibility requirements and
are released by their makers are to be put online under
http://www.vjawards.com and made available for viewing by all those
interested in video production. A specially developed open online voting
system will allow the users to cast votes for their favorite entries.

special prize of the Jury
The jury will award a special prize for an extraordinarily innovative
video production.

Videojournalists today play a decisive role in the media. Technical
innovations offer new and easier ways of producing. This means that
today almost everybody can be his own filmmaker. A growing sphere of
videoplatforms in the internet like „YouTube“ demonstrates this
development vividly. The Award shows films made by professional
tv-journalistst next to production of free film makers. In addition to
this the Award constitutes a stage for establishing ties between
international video journalists and technical innovaters and developers.
The festival reflects what’s happening in the internationale VJ-scene today.

He used to be in radio and I was, too. Online journalism is more like radio than broadcast tv journalism in it’s immediacy and and it’s deadline every minute.

Hard to convince a staff that is used to one 5 p.m. daily deadline to send you stuff before they’ve even written their print stories; one sentence can go in “breaking news” online and really serve an online audience!