Åke Blomström Award on Audio Storytelling

Léa Chatauret

"Open Hearts" - Arte Radio

After studying sociology and political science, Léa Chatauret entered INSAS, a film school in Belgium. Since then, she has worked on documentary films and auteur fiction. Most of these films have been shown at major festivals (Cinéma du réel, IDFA, Nyon, Venice).

At the same time, she is developing her podcast work, with Arte Radio, Louie media. "Open Hearts", her latest podcast on Arte Radio, won the Prix Europa 2023 and a special mention at the "Longueur d'ondes" festival.

Andrew Harding

"Blood Lands" - BBC

Andrew Harding is an author and foreign correspondent who has spent the past three decades living and working in Africa, Asia, and the former Soviet Union. His books and his reporting for BBC News – often focused on conflict zones, including Ukraine - have won him international recognition including a US Emmy, a share of a Peabody award, and South Africa’s top literary prize.

Andrew travelled to the collapsing Soviet Union in 1991 to seek work as a freelance journalist. He reported on the chaos of Yeltsin’s Russia and both Chechen wars. He lived for a time in Tbilisi, Georgia, before moving back to Moscow as a BBC correspondent. He then moved to Nairobi in 2000 as the BBC’s East Africa correspondent, and four years later to Singapore as the BBC’s Asia correspondent, where he covered the tsunami and reported undercover from Burma. In 2009 he moved to Johannesburg as the BBC’s Africa correspondent, from where he covered many of the biggest stories and the changes sweeping the world’s most youthful continent.

Andrew has written three acclaimed non-fiction novels. The Mayor of Mogadishu (2016) told the story of a charismatic brawler who fled Somalia’s civil war for the UK, only to return years later to try to build peace in the ruins of Somalia’s capital. His next book, These Are Not Gentle People, tracked an explosive double murder case in a South African farming community wracked by poverty and racial tensions. His series on the case won a Prix Europa in 2021. His latest book, A Small, Stubborn Town, focuses on a little-known battle that helped change the course of the war in Ukraine, capturing the drama through the lives of a handful of local volunteers.

After fifteen years living in South Africa, Andrew recently moved to France as the BBC’s Paris correspondent. He is married and has three grown-up sons.

Inga Lizengevic

"Babies For the World" - Deutschlandfunk/ORF/SWR

Inga Lizengevic has Belarusian-Ukrainian roots and lives as a radio author in Berlin. Her feature film "Three Countries - My Threefold Split Personality" (SWR 2016) was shortlisted for the n-ost Reportagepreis 2017, for her feature "Babies For the World. The Business with Ukrainian Surrogate Mothers" (Deutschlandfunk/SWR/ORF 2021) she was awarded the Prix Italia 2022 and nominated for the Prix Europa 2022. Thought Crime in Belarus. When Dystopias Come to Life" (Deutschlandfunk Kultur 2022) was nominated for Prix Marulic 2024. Most recently: "And on Thursday There Was War. Russia's Attack on Ukraine" (Deutschlandfunk/ORF 2023)