RAISE THE BAR wins the ECFA Doc Award
Gudjón Ragnarsson's documentary, Raise the Bar, has won the ECFA Doc Award for Best European Documentary for Children. The award ceremony took place on February 12.
Margrét Jónasdóttir, producer of the film, was there to recieve the award and address the audience: “We're very proud and happy to win this award. When we were asked about the target audience, we knew this was a film to be seen by parents, and teachers, and grown-ups, but first and foremost by young audiences. They will meet a group of girls who learned how to straighten their backs and speak up for themselves. With this award, we also pay our respects to them.”
Raise the Bar had its premiere at Hot Docs Festival in April 2021, and has since travelled at festivals around the world. The documentary won two awards at Filem'on festival in Brussels and will soon be distributed in the USA. It has been screened in numerous cinemas in Finland and been sold to international markets, including Switzerland (RTS), Norway (VGTV) and Estonia (ERR).
The documentary was produced by Margrét Jónasdóttir for Sagafilm and coproduced by Outi Rousu for the Finnish production company Pystymetsä Oy. International sales are being handled by Cat&Docs.
Raise the Bar follows a girls' basketball team who aims to break down cultural barriers. Their training program is intense and controversial, and they are led by an overqualified and unusual coach who constantly raises the bar. The team achieves remarkable results and the girls are becoming strong, independent, and are ready to change the world. But is the world ready?
With the ECFA Doc Award, ECFA gives special attention to European quality documentaries produced for a young audience, promoting this specific genre towards audiences and festivals. ECFA (European Children‘s Film Association) is an organisation for all who are interested in high quality films for children and young people: film-makers, producers, promoters, distributors, exhibitors, TV-programmers, festival organisers and film educators etc.