Judges
COTM | BTG SHORTLIST 2025
$30,000 MAIN AWARD
Manu Brabo
No Country for Love: Ten years of war in Ukraine
Manu Brabo. Spain, 1981.
He went through Art Studies, specialized in photography in 2003 and begins his career as a freelance photojournalist in 2007 in Kosovo. Since then Manu has used photography to investigate and tell the violence of the man against the man and its consequences. Honduras, Salvador, Libya, Syria, Iraq, Haiti and Ukraine among others have taken (and have regulated) much of his life, photographing for media such as the Wall Street Journal, with who currently works, or agencies such as The Associated Press, NGOs such as MSF or foundations such as The Welcome Trust.
In his career he has been awarded numerous international awards, including the Pulitzer (2013), POYi on 5 occasions, or the British Press Awards. His work has been exhibited collectively and individually at festivals and photography centers in Europe and the US. In 2017, together with National Geographic, it created a traveling retrospective on his work in the Middle East “Un día Cualquiera” exhibited in Madrid and Barcelona. He has also collaborated with different projects such as “war reporters against cancer.” “breast” in favor of the Spanish Breast Cancer Federation or social campaigns for the Prado Museum.
In addition, he has carried out different projects in different areas of culture, such as his collaboration in the musical show “Ukraína” with the rock band Toundra (Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao, Zaragoza) or its collaborations with the Gijón Film Festival (FICX).
No Country for Love: Ten years of war in Ukraine
Months after the Meidan Revolution and a few weeks after the seizure of Crimea by Russian forces, a referendum took place in Donbas, conditioned by the violence perpetrated against the population following the uprising of mercenary forces sent from Russia and a minority of the indigenous population in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions. Since then, and until the Russian invasion in February 2022, I portrayed the effects of the war on both sides of the front line. A static front line where the militias of the self-proclaimed People's Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, supported by Moscow, faced a Ukrainian army limited by the Minsk agreements. When the Russian invasion became evident and brutal, my coverage, for obvious reasons, change the focus to the story of the victims & the defense of international justice & human rights. This work shows the evolution of a country under a war that, while for most people began in 2022, for most Ukrainians and myself began 11 years ago now.
