First ever winner of the Healthy Workplaces Film Award is announced at international film festival
For the first time, the European Agency for Safety and Healthy at Work (EU-OSHA) has supported the Healthy Workplaces Film Award for the best documentary on work-related topics at the 52nd International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film. The 2009 winner is a film entitled A Blooming Business directed by Dutch director Ton Van Zantvoort, which shows the painful working conditions in a globalised flower industry.
Jukka Takala, Director of EU-OSHA, was enthusiastic about the successful cooperation with this international film festival, allowing the Agency to call attention to its mission of promoting safer and healthier workplaces in Europe: “It was a great idea to support the Healthy Workplaces Film Award at such an exciting and thought-provoking festival. There was a fascinating selection of films dealing with challenging and unfavourable working and living conditions. The films focused on the human being in a changing world of work, reflecting very well a sometimes sad reality in our globalised world. I would like to offer my congratulations to Ton Van Zantvoort, whose film was a worthy winner”.
The submitted films explored the physical and psychosocial outcomes of economic transition and what happens to those people who are not able to keep pace with our working world. They looked at job loss, migrant workers, poverty, outsourcing, modern slavery, and how workers’ rights can be affected.
"A Blooming Business" is a film that approaches the topic of ‘work’ in a highly creative way and highlights the strength of international documentary film-making in 2009. Festival director Claas Danielsen was satisfied with the outcome: “We are pleased that this film has won our first Healthy Workplaces Film Award, as it has illustrated the importance of human working conditions in a striking manner”.
10 films from international filmmakers were nominated for the Healthy Workplaces Film Award and selected from 2,578 documentaries submitted to DOK Leipzig this year. Know more about the Healthy Workplaces Film Award 2009 from our website at: http://osha.europa.eu/en/campaigns/hw2008/Film-Award
Notes to editors:
DOK Leipzig is the largest German and second largest European documentary film festival and has just finalized its 52nd issue with an exciting programme and attractive offers in its individual sections. True to its tradition as the “Window to the World“, the International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film again presented the best and latest animated and documentary films from more than 50 countries to its audience between October 26 and November 1, 2009. www.dok-leipzig.de
The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work was set up by the European Union to help meet the information needs in the field of occupational safety and health. Based in Bilbao, Spain, the Agency aims to improve the lives of people at work by stimulating the flow of technical, scientific and economic information between all those involved in occupational safety and health issues. http://osha.europa.eu
Healthy Workplaces is the largest information campaign on occupational safety and health, running in all EU Member States and beyond to promote efficient risk management. Under the slogan, “Healthy Workplaces Campaign. Good for you. Good for business”, more than 40 European multinationals, employers’ federations, NGOs and employees’ organisations help EU-OSHA to spread the message among workplaces and improve European workers’ conditions. http://hw.osha.europa.eu
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- Brenda O’Brien - Brussels Liaison Office +32 2 401 68 59 | obrien@osha.europa.eu
