On June 9th, the Chat the Planet team took a trip to the Webby Online Film and Video Awards to accept three Awards for our production Hometown Baghdad. (As is mentioned elsewhere on this blog, our experience producing and distributing that series online led us to develop a better way for web publishers/bloggers to foster dialogue around their content. But that’s a story for another post.) Saif, one of the documentary’s subjects who now lives in Boston as a refugee, and his wife Noor were able to come down to New York for the show. Fady, the Iraqi producer of Hometown Baghdad, was also able to come. He is in NY for the summer on break from getting his MFA at USC. Here is our night in pictures:

Saif, Fady and me (L-R) at the pre-award show cocktail party

That’s senior editor Barrett Hawes accepting the award for Best Reality. His five word speech was, “Brave Iraqis made this possible.”

That’s executive producer Kate Hillis saying, “Real Stories help overcome ignorance,” upon accepting the award for Best News and Politics Series.

Here’s our other executive producer Laurie Meadoff accepting the award for Best Public Service and Activism. Her speech, decided about thirty seconds in advance, was, “Alright brave Iraqis, please stand.” When she said those words, Fady, Saif and Noor, who were taken by complete surprise, stood up to a big ovation from the crowd. A very cool moment as captured in this incredibly low quality video.

Laurie, Fady and me at the after party.

Kate, me and Fady at the after party.

At the after party, there was this cool little photo booth taking portraits that were then shown up on a big screen at the party, right above the DJ (who happened to be LCD Soundsystem!!). Here’s me, an excited Saif and Fady posing for our close-up.

Webby winners were asked to do a short interview at the party on the “red couch.” There were a lot of Chat people there so we crowded up the couch. Too bad editors Will Gardiner and Barrett Hawes and exec producer Laurie had left by that point.