Anastasia Slovinskaya, a journalist with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s (RFE/RL) Georgian Service, has been awarded the prestigious 2018 ADAMI Media Prize for Cultural Diversity in Eastern Europe in the category Best Web Video.
Slovinskaya’s winning video, Goran’s Rules Of Life, tells the story of free-spirited traveler Goran, a Roma man who knows how to be content with the little things in life and shares this knowledge and happiness with others. Having spent his entire life on the road traveling through 39 countries, Goran’s stay in Georgia has been the longest. When asked where he is from, Goran replies that he was born in hell and is looking for his earthly paradise, which he has yet to find.
RFE/RL Georgian Service Director Natela Zambakhidze said Slovinskaya’s “beautifully crafted” story deserved recognition “at a time when migration and cultural identity are debated and used by populist politicians in relation to distress, nationalism, and poverty.” Instead, her video celebrates “diversity, or the human nature to explore, travel, and share.”
The video resonated with the Service’s audiences, receiving more than 320,000 views on the Service’s Georgian and Russian language Facebook pages and 13,500 views on YouTube. It was filmed by Slovinskaya’s husband Giorgi Japaridze, and edited by Georgian Service cameraman Toma Begiashvili.
Since 2013, Slovinskaya has covered human rights, migration, and social issues for RFE/RL’s Georgian Service. Before joining RFE/RL, she worked for Imedi TV and the GeoMediaProject.
In its third year, the international ADAMI Media Prize recognizes and encourages the work of filmmakers, journalists, and audio-visual professionals in the media from EU Eastern Partnership countries -- Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine. Prizes are given in six categories for projects that address themes of migration, tolerance, and cultural diversity.
Slovinskaya received the award on November 29 at the Organ Zal in Chisinau, Moldova at a ceremony attended by Secretary General of the Council of Europe Thorbjorn Jagland, Chairperson of the Parliament of Moldova Andrian Candu, and OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Harlem Desir.
In 2016, RFE/RL Moldovan Service Journalist Natalia Sergheev and RFE/RL video producer Alexander Blumberg were awarded the 2016 Young ADAMI Media Prize for their short film Generation Emigration.
With an average of 250,000 visits to its website daily, RFE/RL’s Georgian Service, known locally as Radio Tavisupleba, is a source of independent and balanced journalism in a country where most media are politically divided.
