The international jury of the 2013 World Press Photo Multimedia Contest has announced the winners of the top prizes in three categories of its annual awards: Online Short, Online Feature and Interactive Documentary.

The judging was conducted at the World Press Photo office in Amsterdam, where the jury viewed all the entries and discussed their merits over a period of six days. A total of 287 multimedia productions were entered in the contest, organized for the third time this year. The jury chair Keith W. Jenkins summed up “What we see in the winners this year is a high level of sophistication. The entries were uniformly high in quality.” First prizes were awarded to:

First prize Online Short: ‘Into the Shadows’

  • Photography, direction and camera: Pep Bonet, Noor Images
  • Producer, script and interviews: Line Hadsbjerg, Remarkable World

Summary: People from neighboring countries move to South Africa in search of a better life. In inner-city Johannesburg, many of them struggle for acceptance in the face of discrimination, but are resourceful and persistent in their hope for the future.

First prize Online Feature: ‘Too Young to Wed’

  • Executive producer, photographer and additional videographer: Stephanie Sinclair, VII Photo Agency
  • Director and cinematographer: Jessica Dimmock, VII Photo Agency

Summary: Fifteen-year-old Destaye and her husband spend their time working in the fields of Ethiopia and taking care of their six-month-old baby. At the time of their marriage, Destaye was 11-years old and still in school, but her husband expressed interest in letting her continue her education. Since the birth of their son, however, she has had to fulfill her duties as a wife and mother exclusively.

First prize Interactive Documentary: ‘Alma, a Tale of Violence’

  • Authors and directors: Miquel Dewever-Plana and Isabelle Fougø¨re
  • Producers: Alexandre Brachet and Margaux Missika
  • Photography and camera: Miquel Dewever-Plana

Summary: For five years, Alma belonged to one of the most violent gangs in Guatemala City. She has committed murder, battery, and brutality. Brutalized herself, she has been jailed many times. With 18 murders a day, Guatemala is a country undermined by violence. Alma is typical of her generation, where youths grow up in a world in which laws and justice are flouted with impunity. Families mired in poverty, despair, and alcoholism destroy each other in gang warfare that has become an ordinary way of life ““ and death. She was sentenced to death by her ‘homies’ the day she wanted to quit the gang. Yet she survived the bullets. Although she will never walk again, she is striving to rebuild her life.

Honorable Mention, Interactive Documentary: ‘UnknownSpring’

  • Director and photographer: Jake Price
  • Art director and programmer: Visakh Menon

Summary: Unknown Spring is an immersive online anthology that chronicles a community’s efforts to overcome the tsunami that struck Japan on 11 March 2011 through interactive maps, survivor interviews, video, and audio slideshows, Unknown Spring is a project that provides a portrait of Yuriage, a town that was obliterated by the tsunami’s backwaters, and its residents as they try to move past their traumas and continue on with life.

The full list of winners, the complete production teams, and replays of the winning productions, can be found at http://worldpressphoto.org/multimedia-gallery/2013-multimedia-contest

The multimedia contest is set up separately from the annual photojournalism contest and the entries are judged independently by the multimedia contest jury. The results of the 56th   annual photo contest will be announced on 15 February 2013. For further information visit: http://www.worldpressphoto.org/2013-photo-contest.