these are some of the most powerful images of the past year captured by freelance journalists. a lot of people are still under the debris of the buildings. they work in challenging and dangerous places. but who are the people who capture these stories? why do they do what they do? how do they achieve such remarkable results? and what are the impacts for them personally? hello and welcome to the programme. i'm mark urban. each year, we step behind the camera and speak to people covering the biggest news stories of the day, often under very difficult circumstances and great personal strain. these freelance video journalists are honoured by the rory peck awards, which are named after a british freelancer who was killed covering the coup in moscow in october 1993. i knew and worked alongside rory peck, and even decades later, his determination, coolness under fire and great sense of humour have stayed with me. in order to keep the memory of his example alive, the rory peck trust has supported freelance journalists and their families worldwide for nearly 30 years. so let's take a look at the finalists and winners of the 2023 rory peck awards. first up, the rory peck award for news, for films that capture the immediacy of a story. in this film, guillermo galdos gained rare access to one of the world's most dangerous crime gangs, the sinaloa drug cartel. as restrictions on the cultivation and sale of marijuana have eased in parts of the us, the cartel is increasingly involved in the production and distribution of the dangerous opioid fentanyl. covering this story isn't easy. manyjournalists have been killed trying to do so. using his extensive contacts and years of experience reporting from mexico, galdos was able to report from inside a fentanyl lab, where he met some of the young men making this deadly drug. these guys are young farmers who grew up in the mountains, and they've seen their grandfathers and their fathers being involved either in the marijuana business or in the opium business. and nowadays, you know, synthetic drugs is the new kid on the block. galdos also met with the sicarios or blades, cartel hit men who guard the shipments and the money, protect the cartel�*s turf from rivals and kill to order. the sicarios, the hit men that i met, all of them were incredibly young. all of them had killed. i spoke with them, and i remember something that they mentioned about how difficult it was to kill the first two times. and they said to me, after the third time, you don't even remember about it. the judges said the report demonstrated incredible access. they not only provided us with a rare insight into the drug trade but also taught us a lot about the immense danger posed by fenta nyl as the united states grapples with the crisis. on february the 6th 2023, nearly 6,000 people were killed in syria when a 7.8—magnitude earthquake hit the north—west of the country and neighbouring turkey. in the moments after the earthquake struck, freelancer 0mar haj kadour, who's based in syria, rushed to check on his family. he escorted them out of the building to a safe place and then got to work. the quake had hit electricity supplies, and once day broke, the scale of the destruction was evident. the situation is too bad because a lot of people are still under the debris of the buildings. really, we need urgent help. haj kadour worked for more than 20 hours straight following the quake, filing multiple videos, including live broadcasts from some of syria's most heavily hit areas. the urge to carry on was strengthened with the news of the death of his friend and colleague yaman. thejudges said haj kadour demonstrated incredible courage by hitting the road in complete darkness and delivering unique and compelling footage of the destruction and rescue effort. what stood out to us was the keen attention to detail, from the hospital to the recovery efforts to the stunning drone footage. in 2022, madagascar was rocked by two cyclones which destroyed farmland and infrastructure in the south—east. as a result, hundreds of thousands of people were left on the brink of starvation. winners of the news award jedida andriamasy, gaelle borgia, caroline breniere and jeremy martin travelled to isolated villages to investigate claims about the extraordinary lengths some families were going to in order to survive. msf told us that villagers were offering to sell their children in order to no longer have to look after them and in order to get some money to feed the other children or themselves. while reports of children being sold or abandoned were denied by the government, the journalists won over the trust of locals, who offered first—hand testimony that the practice was taking place. children in madagascar are very sacred, so the idea that someone would sell their child is unthinkable. so obviously it's a very taboo subject, and i think what we had to do is take our time. we had to make sure that they knew who we were, that they knew that we were on their side. we spent a long time in different villages going around, just so that people would eventually trust us to share the stories. this young girl was found abandoned in a rice field with a rope around her neck. just three months old, she was taken in by the family that found her. can you imagine a very fertile l region where everything grows, where there are a lot of fruits, vegetables? - can you imagine _ that from one day to another, people lose everything, they lose their crops . because of a cyclone? | this is what happened. so for a lot of people, - the only option was to abandon, sell or give their children to a relative. _ the judges said the team put themselves at high risk to bring this issue to light. the work produced by the team was original and relevant to the debate on climate change. next, the rory peck award for news features, for films that look beyond the immediacy of the news story. on march the 6th 2022, huge anti—war demonstrations across russia saw more than 5,000 protesters arrested. 29 were taken to moscow's brateevo police station for questioning. there, an unnamed officer wearing black subjected at least 11 young women to verbal and physical abuse, often amounting to torture. two of the detainees secretly recorded their ordeals and upon their release leaked the audio to the press. that's when journalists victoria ara kelyan and jake tacchi made contact with three of the victims with the aim of identifying the so—called "man in black". we'd heard this voice in the recording, and it was almost kind of taunting us, just talking about his total impunity, about how, you know, he'd get away with it, he had complete support of his superiors. and i think that was the point for us where we thought, "god, we've got to find this guy." despite not having a name or photograph to work with, arakelyan and tacchi, along with the young women, used a leaked database from a russian food delivery company, a string of archived social media accounts and a classified car advert to identify the man in black as ivan ryabov. what was so amazing about it was the maturity and the foresight that they had in telling their story and just the bravery that they showed. they didn't want to exist solely as victims, they wanted to take action and be involved in that process of unmasking the perpetrator. once the investigation was completed, arakelyan and tacchi enlisted the help of antoine schirer to give the film an impactful visual narrative. there is open—source research, there is data analysis, also traditionaljournalism and also an extensive use of motion graphics to explain all the complex parts of the story. and motion graphic is really the vehicle almost to get us through. the judges said, "we were immersed in this largely "unreported story from the start, "and it left us with no doubt about the brutality of a force "tasked with containing dissent." for this film, raul gallego abellan gained unprecedented access to the al-quds brigades of palestinian islamichhad, designated as a terrorist organisation by the us, uk, eu and others. filmed in april and may 2023, abellan travelled to thejenin refugee camp in the west bank, where he followed the day—to—day lives of the young palestinian militants, including their frequent battles with the israeli armed forces. gaining their trust was key to obtaining this exclusive footage. we had to first go there, meet them. they check our work, what i did before, and we had to explain what we wanted to do. but it was like a daily... ..daily work, it was not onlyjust one day of meeting them, convincing them. and that's it. every time we went there to film was a way to get more and more access. while the militants abellan spoke to were largely young and inexperienced, he also heard from an ex—fighter who was active during the second intifada or uprising 20 years ago and who questioned the tactic of armed struggle. they were very little when there was the second intifada. and i think they kind of have this romantic image of the fighters. they want to try to do what they heard from their parents or grandparents. but at the end of the day, they know that there is very little chances to achieve anything. the judges said this was an intimate portrayal of life in thejenin refugee camp, taking us beyond the common depictions of the israeli—palestinian conflict to explore why a new generation of palestinians are continuing a cycle of violence while some of their elders are disillusioned by the fight. in 2020, the indian prime minister, narendra modi, announced one of the harshest covid lockdowns in the world, causing nearly 200 million migrant labourers to be stranded without wages, food or housing. winners of the news features award shirley abraham and amit madheshiya immersed themselves in the lives of the contributors. 0ur firstjob was to begin at a place of empathy. that's why we are there. and that's why we want to bear witness to such a tragic situation. and i think the people, the protagonists we were working with, they kind of sensed it and understood that. and that's how they responded to us. and they allowed us to be a part of their families in a time which was so distressful. many walked across the country to return to their home villages, while others caught in limbo with their families were forced to wait, living on the street or under flyovers they'd once laboured to build. they were feeling abandoned by the state and by the people who they worked for. there was no transport for them to go back home. they had been waiting, sometimes even up to two or three nights for there to be either a bus or a train that could transport them home. and they were absolutely angry, enraged at this, at the lack of dignity that this situation had put them into. and i think somewhere they saw us as their allies. the judges said this was an immersive and revealing insight into how devastating the covid lockdowns were for labourers and theirfamilies in india. the journalists showed bravery and resilience in giving a voice to the millions who found themselves on the fringes of society with nowhere else to turn. and, finally, the sony impact award for current affairs for films that really examine a single issue in depth and have impact. since us forces withdrew from afghanistan in 2021 and the hardline taliban regained control, the country has been hit by a major humanitarian crisis. jordan bryon and marcel mettelsiefen's film explores the issue affecting the country through the eyes of its children, many of whom are forced to work to support their families. life is particularly difficult for women and girls, who've been banned from taking part in almost every aspect of public life. because they're so strong—willed and so outspoken, they're incredible characters. but that also comes with risk for them. it's really perilous for afghan girls and women to be showing their faces on camera and telling their stories, particularly when they are speaking out against the taliban. and so, in the editing process, we really had to make sure that we were staying true to who they are and letting their spirits fly at the same time as protecting them. the sons of high—ranking taliban members lead very different lives to the girls working on the streets. going to meet, let alone film with them, isn't usually permitted. the taliban were very interested in cleaning up their image and presenting a kind of taliban 2.0 face. and so they were really open to filming with us at that time. now it's very difficult to get that kind of intimate access. for bryon, there's a certain inevitability to the differing paths these children's lives take. children in afghanistan, children all around the world are really at the behest of the adults in their lives and at the behest of the society that they live in. in the context of afghanistan, those boys will grow up to be the kings of their community and those girls will be subjected to whoever they're married off to. thejudges said seeing the situation in afghanistan through the eyes of young people lifted this film beyond what we think we know and forced us to confrontjust how profoundly situations shape young lives. it's a beautiful portrayal of children on the cusp of adulthood, with depth, insight and humanity. this film by robin barnwell, hilary andersson, serhiy solodko and taras shumeyko tells the story of mariupol through those who lived in the ukrainian city as it was being destroyed by russia. in the early days of the war, coverage had largely been told from the outside in, with foreign journalists reporting military movements and limited space for personal stories. we wanted to flip that around and tell the story of the war from the experiential point of view of the people who actually lived through it. and it wasn't just that. it was trying to get the people who were going to tell us what the war was really like to dig into their deepest emotions. so we didn't want to just hear what happened to them. we wanted to hear what it felt like, what emotions they were going through. much of the film is comprised of footage shot by locals on the ground, often at great risk to their lives. explosion these people shot this footage under fire, you know, when there were bombs going off all around them, when their family members had just died, when they were absolutely terrified of imminent death. and they got the footage out and sometimes it was smuggled out. and it was that footage that we built the film out of. the survivors, now living in other parts of ukraine and across europe, sat down with the film—makers to recount their ordeals. i mean, it's difficult with trauma, isn't it? it can make it worse to tell the story or it can help. and i think in the case of the people who contributed to this film, they all felt like they were doing a good thing, a meaningful thing by telling their stories so that it could be recorded for posterity, for history. the judges said this film was an intimate portrait of the destructive power of war, seen through the eyes of everyday people who all somehow manage to rise to the life—threatening situation in front of them. winner of the award for current affairs, jessica kelly's powerful and ground—breaking film is an investigation into the deadly impact of toxic air pollution in iraq. here, oil companies profit and prioritise over damage to the environment and the health of the local population. it was back in 2020 that we saw these really shocking images of gas flaring in southern iraq being shared on social media. huge orange flames with big black clouds of smoke billowing out. we did some preliminary research using satellite data and found that there were just hundreds of these gas flares in the basra region, and a lot of them were extremely close to where people were living. so this got us interested and we started to gather testimony from those communities and they told us that there were really high levels of cancer. the rumaila oilfield is one of the world's largest. there, kelly and the team met ali, a young cancer survivor who recorded regular video diaries documenting the reality of life for locals living in its shadow. oil makes up more than 90% of iraq's economy. so criticising the industry is extremely sensitive. one of the challenges was finding contributors who were brave enough to speak out. one of the first videos ali sent us is actually what opens the film. it's really simple, and hejust walks out of his front door, opens the gate, and right in front there's a huge flare. and there are kids there playing hopscotch in the shadow of the flare. this film was probably the hardest i've ever made because so many of the children that we filmed with and got to know died during the course of the filming, including ali, who tragically passed away a few months after the film was complete. but what has made it worthwhile and provided some hope is the impact. the iraqi oil ministry finally came forward and pledged to end routine gas flaring by 2026. the judges said the journalism in this film was first class, finding corruption, of which we should all be ashamed. the casting, cinematography and storytelling was stunning, at once intimate and universal, quiet and deafening. that's it for this year's edition of the firing line. another extraordinary year in which freelance journalists brought us important stories from around the world for the 2023 rory peck awards. goodbye. live from london, this is bbc news. blasts are reported in the jabaliya refugee camp. the hamas—run health authorities say two schools were hit, killing at least 80 people. israeli forces say they're investigating. i can't confirm this incident is idf but we are seeing the images like you've seen the images on social media and we are looking into it. i can't confirm at this stage that this is idf but we are looking into it. people continue to leave northern gaza on foot even as tanks mobilise around them. israel denies ordering the evacuation of al—shifa hospital. families of israeli hostages held in gaza march intojerusalem demanding their release. about 20,000 people demonstrate outside the residence of prime minister benjamin netanyahu. superheavy bicester! — — superheavy —— superheavy booster! and lift—off — sort of. space x's starship rocket makes it into space, but its booster explodes shortly after separation and contact with starship is lost minutes later.

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