CANNES: Pyra Media of Egypt won the pitch for the best documentary on AIDS, at the UN-backed AIDS programming pitch held at the Palais on Tuesday.

The proposed five minute film Living with Us proposes to trace the life of a teenager who gets infected with HIV through her boyfriend and her life after that in Egypt.

The Egyptian women-producer duo that bagged the pitch stole a march over competitors from Ukraine and Italy in the short format category. In the long format category, production house Article Z won over two other competitors to win the pitch for their proposed film Sinesipho (Why must she die?) that explores the life of an African girl from her childhood.

Miditech CEO Nikhil Alva was among the five-member jury that judged the event. The others were MTV International public affairs VP Georgia Franklin, SABC2 S Africa TV commissioning editor Aletta Alberts, International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences chairman Fred Cohen and BBC UK health division director Roy Head as well as Cable Positive CEO Steve Villano.