Prague, Oct 1 (CTK) – A German documentary about a Syrian musician who played in the ruins of Damascus until being forced to leave the city together with thousands of other people, won the main prize at the 53rd Golden Prague international festival of television music and dance programmes that ended on Saturday.
The international jury said the winning film, Ayham Ahmad: The pianist of Yarmouk, illustrates how music helps endure horrible sufferings.
The film arouses the feeling of hope and optimism in spite of the tragic circumstances it shows – by means of the invincible spirit of the young man, his love of music and his use of music as a way to convey a crucial message to the world, the jury said.
The Czech Crystal prize in the category of documentary films about music, dance and theatre went to Miracle of Gozo, a film showing the life on a small island next to Malta, which has 30,000 inhabitants and two opera houses where the productions have been largely prepared and performed by amateurs.
The category of documentaries recording live performances was won by the Dutch film Symmetry, which combines dance and opera with the premises of the CERN research centre.
A special notion went to the French film Seiji Ozawa – The Living Spirit of Music, which is a portrait of the world’s leading conductor.
The festival, open to the public, offered a total of 84 programmes on the New Scene of the National Theatre in the past several days. Apart from the traditional music and dance, it newly included programmes focusing on theatre.
During the festival, the renowned Czech-born ballet dancers, brothers Jiri and Otto Bubenicek, presented their Orpheus performance as a farewell to the Czech audience at the close of their active career.
