Winner Victoria and her award
Victoria Musguin graduated from BA TV production in 2010 and amongst working for the likes of channel 4 and the BBC since graduation she has just received a prestigious Al Jazeera award for her final year project documentary A different face.
A Different Face explores the life of Shaharzad Akbar, the first Afghan female to study at Oxford University. Victoria told 22-year-old Shaharzad’s story through her eyes by giving her a camera to film her life in Afghanistan, where the Taliban’s rule left 85% of women uneducated, fighting against war and the threat of assassination.
Crowned the Winner of the New Horizon (second) award at the Al Jazeera International Documentary Festival 2012, Victoria did not believe at first that she had won the award on receiving a ‘dodgy’ looking congratulating email,
“I assumed the email was hacked and ignored it, but decided to call in case and they said it was already screened and the awards had happened. I found out a week after the festival had finished, so I didn’t believe I had won until the presentation video came through the post!”
Victoria says she would definitely recommend anyone to enter as the award has won her an unprecedented level of respect amongst her peers,
“The Al Jazeera award has given me a slightly different level of respect and people take you a bit more seriously.”
Since leaving BU Victoria worked on a stream of high profile TV programmes such as Ramsey’s Best Restaurant, saying the foundation of technical skills from BA TV production have been really useful,
“The ability to edit has been really helpful, and the ability to shoot because the TV industry is evolving really quickly and if you can’t shoot you cannot get the work so you need the ability to shoot really well.”
Victoria would like to personally thank dedicated BU staff for her success,
“Dan Hogan helped with my documentary; even though I wasn’t a BAMMJ he found time to give me some great advice. He and Jonathan Auckland (TV) were really supportive throughout Uni, I owe them a lot.”
Victoria’s latest work has seen her assistant produce documentary film Mission to Lars, about a family and how their brother who has fragile x, a cross between Down’s syndrome and Autism, where the sufferer has a fixations on things, in this case on Lars Ulrich drummer of Metallica.
Different Face is also short-listed in the short film category at the 2012 East London Film Festival screened in July, which Victoria hopes will add even more recognition to her already impressive CV.
