Justine Curgenven wins the 2016 Media Professional award
JUSTINE CURGENVEN - CACKLE TV PRODUCTIONS (Great Britain) - Winner of the 2016 'Media Professional' award.
Website: www.cackletv.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/cackletv
Instagram: www.instagram.com/justinecurgenven
Twitter: twitter.com/cackletv
In a fiercely competitive field, with every nominee having done so much to help raise the profile of paddle sports, the 2016 Media Professional Award was taken home by Justine Curgenven and her company Cackle TV Productions. With Justine not being able to attend the awards ceremony due to an expedition in Antarctica, she left a heartfelt video message for all attendees to watch.
"Thank you so much for awarding me the Media Professional Award at the World Paddle Awards. I'm so excited about it and so honored. It’s been realy hard to keep it a secret for a couple of months since I found out. I would love to be there tonight to celebrate with everybody but unfortunately as the evening happens I'll be in the Antarctic for one month on a sailing and sea kayaking expedition. I am really really grateful to win this award and have this recognition for the work that I've done over the last 15 years. It’s really very very special so thank you very much and have a wonderful evening."
With a love for the outdoors and exploring, Sea Kayaking quickly became one of Justine's favourite things to do.
"I was hooked after my first overnight trip where I caught a fish on a hand line, paddled a 12 mile open crossing and bivvied on a harbor wall with a hip flask of sloe gin, the soundtrack of the sea sending me to sleep," she said.
Whist she has a degree in geology, her jobs as a TV journalist and multi-skilled programme maker were essentially what sparked her love for production.
"After 3 years of working for someone else, I quit, bought a camera and started to make my own films. There weren’t enough days in the year to do a ‘normal job’ and do all the adventurous things that I wanted to do, so I decided to make films of my adventures (and other peoples) and try to sell them. It was a struggle for a few years but I had a few breakthroughs, like selling some footage of climbing Aconcagua in Argentina to a National Geographic programme, and making a programme for BBC Wales about two whitewater kayakers."
With Justine’s work helping raise awareness of what is possible in a sea kayak, many paddlers have been inspired to go out and push their limits. In addition to this her latest film, “Kayaking the Aleutians," which has been shown at dozens of film festivals and been on tour with several mainstream festivals, has helped show non-paddlers what it’s like to do a challenging sea kayaking expedition.
With her expeditions taking her to wild and wonderful places all over the world, Justine talks fondly about the people she meets and the terrain she comes across.
"I am always impressed by the local people that I meet on my remote journeys. It takes a special kind of person to live in an isolated lighthouse in Kamchatka, manning the generator that warns passing ships about the rocky point and not seeing any other people for 8 months at a time. It’s such a privilege to spend an evening with people like this who chose the road-less-trodden. They are always delighted that someone has visited them and we enjoy learning about each others lives. I’ve collected and eaten sea urchin eggs at a small Aleut community, had a pilot of a tiny plane land on the beach we were camping on to say hello and been cooked amazing meals by strangers all over the world."
As she sails and paddles her way around the Antarctic with camera in hand, we are sure Justine will return with many great shots and stories ready to share with the world.
Read Justine's full profile here.