'Untold Story' of family's Holocaust experience wins Pawel award

Published On Tue 4 Feb 2014 by Grant Hill

Image shows Pawel with his award.

Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design (DJCAD) graduate Pawel Grzyb has won the prize for Best Undergraduate Factual film at the Royal Television Society Scotland's Student Television Awards.

Judges considered entries from students at City of Glasgow College, DJCAD, Edinburgh College of Art, The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, University of Stirling and University of the West of Scotland before naming Pawel as the category winner for 'Untold Story'. The film saw Pawel retrace the experiences of his grandfather, who survived the horrors of the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II.

Untold Story was produced by Pawel, with assistance from classmates. Pawel, who graduated with first-class honours in Time Based Art & Digital Film last year, also won the Sir James Black Award for Outstanding Achievement during his time at University and has been selected to exhibit at the prestigious New Contemporaries show at the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh this month.

He said he was delighted to have won the award, especially as it has been given for such a personal work. Pawel hopes to establish his own production company as his career develops.

'In 1942, my grandfather, Franciszek, was transported out of Auschwitz into the depths of the Third Reich,' he explained. 'He survived the war, and started a new life, but decided not to talk about his experience of the Holocaust.

'Twelve years after his death, I decide to revisit Poland and use the medium of documentary film to preserve the untold story of my grandfather's eventful life, through retracing the last remaining threads of his history. Untold Story consists of interviews carried out with family members, Auschwitz historical consultants and archivists, and the locals in my home city of Krakow.'

The Royal Television Society Scotland Student Television Awards is run each year by a team of volunteers dedicated to supporting television in Scotland.

RTS Scotland Centre Chair James Wilson praised Pawel and his fellow winners and finalists, saying, 'We are most grateful to the students who every year impress us all with the power of their productions, the quality of their work and the enormous effort they commit to developing their craft.

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