The Marble Village (trailer) from Ioana Dorobantu on Vimeo.

THE GRIERSON AWARDS are the documentary form’s most prominent prize – and LCC MA Documentary Film student Ioana Dorobantu has received a nomination.

Ioana’s film, The Marble Village, won London’s Open City Documentary Festival earlier this year. In September, she will find out if this story of a diminishing community in rural Romania has made the final four in the Grierson selection.

A former producer for Romanian national television, Ioana is currently filming a documentary on the demise of the Danube Delta, called An Almost Lost Paradise. During the first period of filming, she had the opportunity to interview Romanian Olympic legend Ivan Patzaichin, a champion kayaker.

Last year, another LCC MA Documentary Film student, Alana McVerry, was shortlisted for a Grierson award for her film on children with HIV.  In September that year, she also joined a BBC training scheme. She was one of nine people given £10,000 to make two taster tapes to pitch to commissioners in March 2012. 

This oppotunity has spawned numerous others in a range of disciplines, including camera operating, digital video directing, and editing.

Alana now runs her own company, Planet Caravan, through which she works on commissions for charities and businesses.  Her most recent job, called Elizabeth’s Legacy of Hope, featured Joanna Lumley, and was shown at Downing Street to the Prime Minister and others in July. 

 The Grierson Awards, established in 1972, continue the legacy of John Grierson, who is widely regarded the father of the documentary form. He remains famous for his works Drifters and Night Mail.