Jury motivation:

Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989 is an impressive and ambitious archive project that highlights how Sweden’s public service broadcaster has portrayed one of the most complex and long-lasting conflicts of our time. Göran Hugo Olsson’s restrained mastery of form opens a cinematic window onto a very different media era – a time when the public service broadcaster had a monopoly on the broadcast of moving images of the world and thus also a special responsibility for how this world was presented to the audience. The film is therefore not only a story about the Middle East, but also a media-historical reflection on Swedish television journalism’s approach to objectivity and materiality. The film’s gently exploratory approach reveals how television aesthetics, media ethics, and political realities change over time – and how journalism attempts to navigate this shifting landscape. With immense historical scope, consistent editing, and a deep contemporary seriousness, the film tells a story about how people in Sweden have viewed a conflict that has long been present in their living rooms, but whose interpretive frameworks have constantly been in flux. Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989 is a film that gives perspective on a perspective.