During the Awards Ceremony of DIG Festival 2024: 'J'accuse'., held in Modena on September 21 2024 and hosted by Valerio Bassan and Silvia Boccardi, the audio and video juries assigned the DIG Awards 2024, which celebrate the best projects in investigative journalism and reportage published over the last year.
Below, you'll find the winners of each category; at this link, instead, you will find all the finalists, selected among more than 400 submissions that came from all over the world.
During the Ceremony, were also assigned the DIG Pitch 'Matteo Scanni' 2024, a €15.000 funding to a documentary in a writing or production stage, and the DIG Watchdog Award, that the DIG Board gives every year to reporters or media institutions with a special merit, honoring their bravery: this year, the Award was assigned to the Press House - Palestine and to all Palestinian journalists.
🏆 INVESTIGATIVE LONG
SYRIA: ADDICTED TO CAPTAGON
PRODUCTION: BBC Eye Investigations
DISTRIBUTION: BBC Eye Investigations
COUNTRY: United Kingdom
YEAR: 2024
LENGTH: 52′
DIRECTED BY: Emir Nader
The DIG Awards Jury Motivation:
«Syria: Addicted to Captagon is a thrilling journey into a narco state manufacturing an epidemic across the Middle East. The film takes us to several countries in an effort to understand the impact of this drug on the region. Featuring a cache of original documents and hard-to-reach sources, the team exposes the Syrian regime's strategy against neighboring countries and its need to find a source of revenue. The investigation successfully links the drug epidemic with the Assad family and the whole regime.»
🏆 LONG REPORTAGE
LEBANON, THE HEIST OF THE CENTURY
PRODUCTION: Independent
DISTRIBUTION: ARTE
COUNTRY: France, Lebanon
YEAR: 2024
LENGTH: 55′
DIRECTED BY: Miyuki Droz Aramaki, Sylvain Lepetit
The DIG Awards Jury Motivation:
«Innovatively deconstructing an extremely complex state, Lebanon: The Heist of the Century combines outstanding creative direction and exemplary access to expose a financial scandal at the highest level of the state, one that has battered its citizens over the last decades without any accountability or justice. It is an enduring and engaging portrait of a failing state and the triggers behind it.»
🏆 INVESTIGATIVE MEDIUM
WITH EVERY BREATH
PRODUCTION: ProPublica, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
DISTRIBUTION: ProPublica
COUNTRY: USA
YEAR: 2024
LENGTH: 21′
DIRECTED BY: Liz Moughon
The DIG Awards Jury Motivation:
«Investigative journalism is about identifying misconduct, exposing truths, and holding those in power accountable. There are significant, pressing global crises and conflicts where investigative journalism is crucial. But it is most needed in the acute crises close to home, which this American team has excelled at. With a restrained yet fierce tone and a beautiful connection to those affected, With Every Breath accomplishes everything that qualified investigative journalism should – exposing how millions of sick and elderly people are subjected unwillingly to a medical experiment, and where a multinational corporation is caught in years-long lies.»
🏆 REPORTAGE MEDIUM
GAZA 101: EMERGENCY RESCUE
PRODUCTION: BBC News Arabic
DISTRIBUTION: BBC News Arabic
COUNTRY: United Kingdom
YEAR: 2024
LENGTH: 26′
DIRECTED BY: Mohamed Ibrahim
The DIG Awards Jury Motivation:
«Almost a year into Israel's relentless assault on Gaza, producing stories that turn the world's eyes to the Strip is challenging. Gaza 101: Emergency Rescue does this expertly. The reportage cuts through the fog of the war by focusing on a team of paramedics, whose targeting by Israel constitutes a flagrant war crime. Over the course of half an hour, this film shows its subjects being sucked into the death machine, digging their own family members from the rubble. This is a film nobody can be unmoved by, nor turn away from – an undeniable accusation.»
🏆 SHORT
THE MELONI YOUTH
PRODUCTION: Fanpage.co.uk
DISTRIBUTION: Fanpage.co.uk
COUNTRY: Italy
YEAR: 2024
LENGTH: 12′
DIRECTED BY: Luigi Scarano, Selena Frasson, Cristiana Mastronicola
The DIG Awards Jury Motivation:
«In the festival’s most diverse category, all types of short storytelling are represented. This year’s winner, Melonian Youth, stands out for its decisive ability to prove something that has long been denied – the smoking gun, right in front of our eyes: the sanitization of the far right groups. The power lies in the visual documentation through courageous undercover work, a scandal that has reached the very top of Italian politics is exposed.»
🏆 AUDIO AND PODCASTS
BLOODLINES
PRODUCTION: BBC Asian Network, BBC Sounds & CBC Podcasts
COUNTRY: United Kingdom
YEAR: 2023
LENGTH: 4 hours 15 minutes
AUTHOR: Poonam Taneja
The DIG Awards Jury Motivation:
«The audio jury of the DIG Awards 2024 honors Poonam Taneja's podcast Bloodlines for its strong investigative depth, blending empathy with exceptional professionalism. The Jury was particularly impressed by the podcast's immersive sound design, which pulls listeners into the heart of the story, and by how Taneja took the audience behind the scenes of her investigative process. Her reporting is both robust and narratively compelling. Despite the topic of ISIS being widely covered in recent years, Bloodlines offers a fresh, original angle that sheds new light on the subject. The long-standing trust Taneja has cultivated with her sources over the years adds a unique depth to the storytelling.»
🏆 DIG PITCH 'MATTEO SCANNI' 2024
THE DIPLOMAT
AUTHORS: Juan Ravell, Jeff Arak, Pedro Alvarez Gales
The DIG Awards Jury Motivation:
«This slick pitch thrilled the jury. It’s a spy story with potentially major international ramifications; a scandal hiding in plain sight; a huge embarrassment for a global superpower. If successful, this film will deploy large-scale cross-border collaboration to expose a public interest story that is clearly aligned with DIG’s investigative journalism ethos. The jury believes the team of this film will access unique sources to tell a difficult, though potentially huge, story.»
