Berlin - The 2007 PRIX EUROPA ended in Berlin Saturday evening with 13 of Europe's best radio, TV and internet programmes winning awards totalling 78,000 euros (111,000 dollars) after seven days of intense media competition.
Four of the top prizes were clinched by British productions, and three by German programmes. The six other awards went to radio and tv productions from Belgium, Denmark, France, Ireland, Poland and Portugal.
The best TV documentary award was scooped by the veteran British author-producer Paul Watson with his BBC entry titled 'Rain in my Heart,' in which the lives of four alcohol abusers living in impoverished surroundings in southern England were monitored over a lengthy period.
'The Wall - Berlin '61', a West Deutscher Rundfunk entry made by author-director Hartmut Schoen, won the top TV fiction award.
It tells the story of an East Berlin scrap metal smuggler who, with his wife, visits friends in West Berlin on the very night the inner-city border gets sealed in 1961, leaving them with a battle on their hands to be reunited with their son at home in the communist eas.
The special PRIX EUROPA award for the best entry from a local or regional TV station was picked up by director Miroslaw Dembinski, for his 'A Lesson in Belarusian.' His film zeroes in on the violent upheavals in Minsk in 1995, when thousands of demonstrators went on the streets and hundreds landed in prison.
'The Day Theo van Gogh was Murdered,' a TV film by Esther Schapira and Kamil Taylan dealing with the brutal murder of the Dutch film director in November 2004, won the festival's best TV current affairs award.
The 2007 European radio documentary award went to the Danish programme 'The Love Police' by Krister Molten (author) and Tim Hinman (producer). The documentary takes an unconventional look at the activities of the Danish immigration office.
Hans-Gert Pottering, the president of the European Parliament, showed up for the PRIX EUROPA awards ceremony; personally presenting the prize in the TV fiction category to Schoen.
More than 1,000 guests were present at Deutsche Telekom's Berlin premises for the awards ceremony.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
Your Talkback on this Story