Top, left to right: Raney Aronson-Rath, James Jones, Olivier Sarbil. Bottom, left to right: Dan Edge and Andrew Metz.
Best TV, video or documentary interpretation of international affairs less than one hour
AWARD DATE: 2017
AWARD NAME: 08 The Edward R. Murrow Award
AWARD RECIPIENT: Raney Aronson-Rath, James Jones, Olivier Sarbil, Dan Edge and Andrew Metz
AWARD RECIPIENT AFFILIATION: FRONTLINE PBS in association with Channel 4
AWARD HONORED WORK: “Mosul”
AWARD SPONSOR: CBS News
The world has been riveted in horror by the brutality of ISIS and the long, bloody campaign to defeat it in Syria and Iraq. The climactic showdown was the 9-month-long battle of Mosul. In Mosul, filmmaker Olivier Sarbil follows a squad of Iraqi Special Forces as they fight their way house by house through Mosul. His documentary stands out for the way it connects viewers with the characters of four Iraqi soldiers, putting human faces on an inhuman conflict. Sarbil shows how the mostly Sunni civilians fear the predominantly Shiite Iraqi soldiers, who in turn are wary of ISIS fighters trying to hide among the civilians they meet – this is the fundamental root of the conflict. We hear the crunch of broken glass under the soldiers’ boots as they approach a doorway, the whispered warning not to move a curtain which could give away their position, the boom of a car bomb that kills one of their comrades. This is the ugly, unpredictable but relentless face of war, seen from up very close through Sarbil’s lens—and clearly at substantial risk to himself.
Citation Recipients: Steve Kroft, Draggan Mihailovich, Laura Dodd and Matthew Lev
Affiliation: CBS 60 Minutes
Honored Work: “Isle of Eigg”