Martin Blaney in Nyon

UK film-maker Molly Dineen has been awarded the Grand Prix for The Lie Of The Land about the hard daily routine of English farmers at Nyon's Visions du Reel documentary film festival which closed on April 23.

In addition, the International Jury, which included US producer Claire Aguilar and the Swiss DoP Severine Barde, gave the Prix SRG SSR Idee Suisse to Ju An-Qi's portait of contemporary urban China in Night In China.

The Audience Jury's award went to Denis Sneguirev's Between The Bear And The Wolf, which also received a special mention from the Ecumenical Jury who gave its main prize to Polish film-maker Marcin Koszalka's The Existence.

Other prizes included the newly created George Foundation award for the best Swiss newcomer film to Antoine Cattin und Pavel Kostomarov's The Mother, the Suissimage/SSA award for the most innovative Swiss film to Juan Lozano's Unwanted Witness, and an honorary award to veteran German documentarist Volker Koepp, who won last year's Visions du Reel Grand Prix for Sons and was the subject of an atelier at this year's festival.

This year's programme of accompanying industry events in the Doc Outlook-International Market included the festival's third pitching forum for theatrical documentaries organised in cooperation with the European Documentary Network.

According to Doc Outlook manager Gabriela Bussmann, over 50 projects were submitted for this year's day of pitching, which was attended by representatives of broadcasters from Switzerland, Germany, France, and Finland as well as by such sales agents as First Hand Films, Wide Management, Fortissimo Films, Paul Thiltges Distribution and Sydney Neter Films.

The 10 selected projects presented to potential financiers and co-producers included Marianna Kaat's Estonian-Ukrainian co-production The Pit about the illegal mining business in Eastern Ukraine, Swedish-based director Linda Thorgren's first full-length documentary, Abuse, about violence within her own family, and Serbian film-maker Boris Mitic's latest project Aphocalypse Now! which turns it attention to the world of Serbian satirical aphorisms.

In addition, Turkish-born Asli Oezge presented her documentary Rush Hour (working title) about the hopes and dreams of three people coming from the poorer suburbs of Istanbul. The production by Fabian Massah's Berlin-based Endorphine Production will be co-produced by Sevil Demirci (Takva: A Man's Fear Of God) and already has Golden Orange Award-winner Emre Erkmen attached as DoP and Christof Schertenleib (Import/Export) as editor.

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