The production team of television programme Xarabank was declared the winner of two categories and placed second in another category of the Malta Journalism Awards, organised by the Institute of Maltese Journalists. This was announced tonight in an event held at Robert Sammut Hall, Floriana. The Xarabank team won the categories ‘TV Film’ and ‘TV Script’ and placed second in ‘Travel Journalism’.

The Xarabank team entered the ‘TV Film’ category with the film of the investigation it carried out on local fortune telling practice, the film of what happened in the Vatican during, before and after Saint Gorg Preca’s canonization cermony, and the film of a gay marriage involving a Maltese National that took place in Holland.

In the ‘TV Script’ category, the Xarabankteam competed with the script of the features it produced about the EgyptAir hijack that had its dramatical epilogue in Malta in 1985, the script recounting the alleged supernatural phenomena and holy appearances in Birzebbugia, together with the script of a whole programme produced about the Prime Minister’s visit to Maltese emigrants in Australia.

The Xarabank team placed second in the ‘Travel Journalism’ category with the programme that was aired live from St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City on occasion of Saint Gorg Preca’s canonisation, an exclusive interview that was made in France with the last executioner alive in Europe, together with the features that were produced in Portugal recounting the kidnapping of British child Madeline McCann.

In this competition the Xarabank team was represented by journalists and producers Norman Vella, Claire Preca Taroum and Rebekah Grima, editors Olwyn Jo Saliba and Samuel Dalli, camerapersons Mandy Micallef Grimaud and Charles Ahar, the team manager Peter Carbonaro and the programme’s director Mark Vassallo.