One Year On: The Essex Lorry Tragedy was made for the first anniversary of thedeaths of 39 Vietnamese migrants who were found in the back of a lorrycontainer in Essex, UK.
Viet Nam News journalists Paul Kennedy and Ho Hoang travelled to Yen Thanhdistrict, Nghe An province, central Vietnam, to a small community hit hard bythe tragedy.
On December 18, judges at the Erie International Film Festival announced thedocumentary produced by the multimedia department of Viet Nam News had wonfirst prize in the Documentary Short category.
Frank Leczner, Jr., Festival Director, said: “I am honored to congratulate VietNam News on creating a film so very well done, and it was my true pleasure tohave had the opportunity to present it to the world.
"An incredible film, so well done by very talented filmmakers on a subjectmatter that was told in a truly touching, respectful, and heart-wrenchingway."
The 2021 Erie International Film Festival took place over nine days fromDecember 10 in Pennsylvania. It featured around 60 independent movies,documentaries, animation productions and music videos.
This is now the 12th award the documentary, which was screened on VNews TV tomark the anniversary of the tragedy, has won at international festivals in anumber of countries including India, Singapore and Bhutan.
Executive producer Paul Kennedy said: “It was an amazing achievement to beselected just to be screened at the 2021 Erie International Film Festival.
“To then learn our efforts were rewarded by winning the award for best of itsgenre, is great news. I just hope our production can go some way tohighlighting the plight of the poor people who lost their lives in the back of thatlorry two years ago.”
One Year on: The Essex Lorry Tragedy is available to watch exclusively in Vietnamvia Galaxy Playhttps://galaxyplay.vn/title/one-year-on-the-essex-lorry-tragedy./.