The End of the Line wins PUMA Creative Impact Award
The End of the Line has won one of the film world’s most valuable awards after being hailed for bringing about real change in its efforts to stop the oceans being emptied of fish. It was announced the winner of the inaugural Puma Creative Impact Award at a ceremony in Central London, beating off stiff competition from Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country and The Age of Stupid.
The End of the Line, directed by Rupert Murray, features Charles Clover, the investigative journalist, as he chronicles the catastrophic decline of global fish stocks, challenging politicians and restaurateurs along the way.
The Puma award judges, including Queen Noor of Jordan, Morgan Spurlock, the director of Super Size Me, were impressed both by the immediate impact of the documentary and its long-term social influence.
Jon Snow said he was “not surprised” The End of the Line had been named the overall winner. The documentary had “completely transformed the way a very large number of people think about fish”, he added. “You can see restaurants and supermarkets changing their ways because of what their customers now know,” Snow told BBC News.
Snow who hosted the award ceremony, paid tribute to the film’s achievements in persuading companies like Pret a Manger and Whiskas cat food to change their fish-buying policies to reduce the damage to the world’s fisheries, and in helping to create a charity that with the Chagos Islands initiative has doubled the area of the oceans protected as marine reserves from one to two per cent.Fish2fork, the campaigning sustainable restaurant guide, and the Blue Marine Foundation, which led the campaign to create a marine reserve around the Chagos Islands, are among the legacies of the film and continue to draw public attention to the state of the world’s fisheries and in finding ways to bring about improvements.
A recent study by the Channel 4 Britdoc Foundation, which partnered Puma Creative in holding the awards, concluded earlier this that by the spring of 2010 a total of 4.7 million people in the UK were aware of the documentary. The linkup between Fish2fork and Selfridges to run the Project Ocean campaign in the West End of London this year was another factor in the film winning the award and the £43,000 (€50,000) first prize.
A delighted Mr Murray said winning was “brilliant” and said it was “really an award for everyone” who was involved in making the film. He described the win as the “icing on the cake” to making a film that had succeeded in changing people’s ideas about fish and fishing. He added: “Documentary film makers aren’t just concerned with making films for entertainment. There’s a purpose behind it. This award recognises that desire to make a positive impact on the world.” Queen Noor and Mr Spurlock were joined on the judging panel by Orlando Bagwell, the Emmy award-winning filmmaker, Loretta Minghella, the director of Christian Aid, and Emmanuel Jal, the musician and social campaigner.
They said in announcing The End of the Line as the winner: “We all agreed that the prize should go to the film that was most beautifully crafted, that carried a message of global importance, that delivered a call to action that must be heeded, that delivered on that call to action to create actual awareness and, as the award suggests, impact. “It is for this reason that the 2011 PUMA Creative Impact Award goes to a movie that stays with you long after the credits have rolled. It is a film that has and will continue to influence and shape the actions of individuals, the choices of governments, of the media, and of industry. Hopefully with this prize, the great work that has begun can continue.”
Mr Clover, whose book The End of the Line was the inspiration for the documentary, said: “I would like to pay tribute to Rupert Murray, Claire Lewis, Claire Furguson, the creative people who took my book and made a film out of it. They made a film that makes people feel as angry about what is happening to the sea as my book did. I’d like to thank in particular Christo Hird, our executive producer, who saw the potential social impact all along and helped us to achieve it beyond our wildest dreams.
Clover continues “Our two legacy projects of the film, the Blue Marine Foundation - founded by two other producers of the film, Chris Gorell Barnes and George Duffield - and Fish2fork could not have come into being without the whole team making the film as good as it was.”
“Jochen Zeitz, chairman of the board at Puma, the sportswear company, said: “Documentary film is such an influential medium because it allows the public to emotionally connet with the subject matter. We hope that with the PUMA.Creative Impact award we can help to inspire positive change in the world.” The End of the Line was on a shortlist of five documentaries. Burma VJ came second with a special commendation from the judges. The Age of Stupid, Trouble the Water and The Reckoning: The Battle for the International Criminal Court were the other shortlisted films.