PRIX EUROPA
Best European Radio Documentary of the Year 2009
Donated by the European Commission
Directorate General of Communication

Lost in Music. The Cornel Chiriac Story / Lost in Music. Die Cornel Chiriac Story
Südwestrundfunk - SWR,  ARD, Germany;
by: Patrick Banush (author/director), Wolfram Wessels (commissioning editor), Daniel Seiler (sound);
co-produced by BR, WDR

Synopsis
The true story of the Rumanian radio disc jockey Cornel Chiriac. During the heyday of the Ceausescu dictatorship, he introduced an entire generation to Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin with his radio show Metronome. But when he commented upon the Soviet invasion of Prague in 1968 during prime radio time with the song Back in the USSR his program immediately got banned. He fled to Munich. On 4 March 1975 he was brutally murdered.

Citation by the Jury
"The jury underlines the very clever construction of this programme and its fast rhythm, which reflects in a very convincing way the life of the loneliest Radio Discjockey in the world -
who fled from Romania during the communist period and became a living myth at the legendary station “Radio Free Europe“, which was broadcasting out of Munich to the Eastern Block
– an outstanding DJ who was dedicated to the philosophy: live fast, die young."