The annual Prix Europa media awards were made in October in Berlin. The Prix Europa is open to film and radio productions from across Europe. Prizes also go to nations outside the EU - including Serbia and Romania.
Designed to encourage new high standards of programming, the 1997 Prix Europa was awarded to an Irish and to two British productions. Prizes went to the British Amber Production Team for their programme The scar, and to Mandy Temple for her outstanding documentary on Igor - the boy who dared to dream, a moving portrayal of a young boy born disabled after Chernobyl.
The Prix Europa Youth Prize went to Irish film producer Stephen Burke for Eighty one, a look at two families in Northern Ireland during the hunger strikes of 1981.