Bombs, Balls and Beyoncé Doc Wins Nomination For RTÉ

RTÉ European editor Tony Connelly and Voice of Ireland presenter Kathryn Thomas (pictured) are among the Irish entrants nominated for Prix Europa prizes this year. Connelly's Documentary-On-One programme about the crisis in Ukraine, entitled Bombs, Balls and Beyoncé has been nominated in the Best Current Affairs Programme on Radio category.

In total, seven programmes across RTÉ One (television), RTÉ Radio 1 and RTÉ Lyric fm have been shortlisted for this year’s Prix Europa, which will take place in Berlin, in October. Founded in 1987, the Prix Europa has grown into Europe’s largest festival for television, radio and online media. The Prix Europa Awards recognise the best European productions each year.

The full list of nominations, named by RTÉ in a statement issued this afternoon, is:

• In the TV Documentary category, A Parting Gift (Loosehorse Productions for RTÉ One) has been nominated. A Parting Gift is a two-part series which secured unprecedented access to tell the story of the Body Donation Programme at Trinity College, Dublin. Filmed over 18 months, the programme focuses on ‘the gift’ of body donation: an act of real generosity that contributes to world-class medical education, research and scientific endeavour.

• Jobs Abroad by the RTÉ Investigations Unit (broadcast on RTÉ One) has been nominated in the TV Current Affairs category for Best European TV Investigation. The programme, produced and directed by Frank Shouldice, looks at the treatment of foreign workers by Irish firms and asks if employees are being taken advantage of as a result of complicated and confusing European Union legislation.

• RTÉ Radio 1’s Documentary on One has received two nominations in the categories of Radio Documentary and Radio Current Affairs. Nominated for best radio documentary, Documentary on One: Con Carey and the Twelve Apostles tells the story of the only man in Kerry to be buried twice. Con Carey was a bachelor labourer who died on his way home from the pub in 1978. His story is still spoken about because of what happened to him after death.

• Nominated for best current affairs programme on radio, Documentary on One: Bombs, Balls and Beyoncé sees RTÉ’s Europe Editor, Tony Connelly, take a different approach to the story of Ukraine in crisis: he tells it through football.

• In the Radio Drama category, RTÉ Radio 1’s Drama on One: Charolais is a surreal comedy about love, longing and one woman’s intense rivalry with a Charolais heifer. Written and performed by Noni Stapleton, directed by Goretti Slavin, and with sound supervision by Damian Chennells, Charolais is a muddy place of simmering desire minced with a loneliness that cuts to the bone.

• Finally, two RTÉ programmes have been nominated in the Radio Music category: The Lyric Feature: Splendor - Portrait of a Building (RTÉ lyric fm) and Music Passport: Journey through Genocide (RTÉ Radio 1).

In Splendour – Portrait of a Building, a group of musicians from the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam decided to set up their own co-operatively run venue and rehearsal space in the heart of the city. What began as a response to the distancing of the audience from the performers and a lack of opportunity to work with musicians from other genres, has become a venue of hope, possibilities and fantastic concerts. RTÉ Lyric fm’s Eoin Brady profiles the Splendor project and asks why it works – and if something similar could work in Ireland?

Music Passport: Journey through Genocide was recorded in 2014, during the 20th anniversary of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide. Presenter Kathryn Thomas travelled to Rwanda to meet with survivors of the genocide and to find out about the unexpected role played by music at the time. She discovers how music played a crucial role leading up to the mass killings of 1994 – and how it is helping to unify Rwandan society 20 years on.

The winning programmes will be announced at the Prix Europa Awards ceremony in Berlin on the 23 October. Prix Europa is organised by an alliance of 30 European institutions, comprising several broadcaster, under the patronage of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).