1st prize Fausto Podavini
Italy
Mirella
After almost 40 years spent together, the presence of the syndrome of Alzheimer’s has created a significant change in the lives of Mirella, and only the love of her husband, Mirella has allowed to find the strength to face an unexpected and devastating disease. Mirella is the love story of a woman for her husband, a woman suddenly forced to face on her own the biggest difficulty experienced, made by hopes and unbelief, pain and resignation, sorrow and powerlessness. The work has as its goal to tell Alzheimer’s through the person assisting the patient. In this case the wife, Mirella.
2nd prize Myriam Meloni
Italy
Important Things are said Softly
Yessica is a single mother. She strives to support her family, paying on her own skin the price of prostitution, and with love and will power, she guarantees to her two kids the most important of all securities, affection, on which, human chances of being happy strongly depend. ” The important things are said softly” Is the Diary of 3 individuals who live together, make reproaches, say “I love you!”, take care of each other, play, fight and grow, discovering together , day after day, what it means to be a family. Today, about 16% of children worldwide live in a single parent household and in 3/4 of the cases, they are only accompanied by the mother. In these times of change, it is crucial to understand that the family is an active element that never remains stationary, it moves from one form to another as the society evolves. The characteristics it takes are endless; perhaps, there is no need to try to understand them all. It is all about learning how to respect them.
3rd prize Zoltan Balog
Hungary
Diary of Ivett and Dezso
I met Ivett and Dezso in the arrant slum of Verseny street. This place is mostly known for „arbitrary apartment occupiers”. Dezso was born here and his whole family is bound to this place, some has lived here for a shorter or longer time. The young couple met in a disco 5 years ago and they are living as arbitrary apartment occupiers in a hole of 2×2 metres without any public utilities in the backyard of this building since then. Both of them is 20 years old, and they are expecting their third child for January, 2012. Their first two children were taken by the Department of Child and Family Services, but they would like to start a new life and keep the newcomer with the help of Child Well-being Center of Erzsébetváros,Budapest. This is an ongoing photo essay representing their life, their happiness and their struggle for their baby.
3rd prize Sohrab Hura
India
Life is elsewhere
It was in the summer of 1999 when my mother was diagnosed with an acute case of Paranoid Schizophrenia. I was 17 then. The doctors, in retrospect, had said that she had already started developing the symptoms many years prior to that. Symptoms that nobody had noticed. Our initial years were spent hiding from the world. Hers out of paranoia and mine out of embarrassment and anger at who she had become. But after all these years I’ve realized that my mother had never stopped loving me. My Life is Elsewhere is a journal of my life, my family, my love, my friends, my travels, my sheer need to experience all that is about to disappear and so in a way I’m attempting to connect my own life with the world that I see with a hope to find my reality in it. I hope that in time I am able to piece together this wonderful jig saw puzzle called life. And this journey will perhaps lead to reconciliation with my own life.
3rd prize Anastasia Taylor
UK
The National Womb
In 2008 Nagorno Karabakh’s de facto government introduced the “birth encouragement program” which distributes cash payments to newlyweds for each baby born, with the aim of repopulating the region after the devastating 1991-1994 war.
Special Mention Andrea Campesi
Italy
Family postcards
A diary made of images where there is no precise guideline to follow. Everything is linked to my own experience, personal feelings, memory, my own life. My intent is to give voice to emotions where anger, tenderness, desperation are blended as a unique whirlpool. It doesn’t matter who I am with, nor where I am at. What counts are the encountering, the landscapes, the details which are part of my daily life. An attempt to represent my condition of non-heir and the casualty of being born and raised in a specific place. An endless daily research. A continuous necessity to observe and feel part of this world.
