"Best camera award" SPFF - Starigrad Paklenica Film Festival Zagreb CROATIA

Best Documentary Feature Award Chicago International Movies and Music Festival 2010

"Jury chair Ivan Kral Praised its technical proficiency as well as its uplifting message "

Silver Lei Award
for Excellence in Film Making
Honolulu International Film Festival 2010

SRG SSR idée suisse Prize
Honorary Mention

"We would like to grant a honorary mention to this production for the initiative of highlighting "El Sistema", Venezuela´s unique system of music education.
Created 30 years ago and adopted as a public policy, this social project involving the access to classical music has not only produced excellent and internationally distinguished musicians but also deeply changed the lives of thousands of underprivileged children from all over Venezuela."

TEMPS D'IMAGES FILM AWARD
for the film which reflects the importance of art for society and life in the most original way

"The jury of the Festival Temps D'Images gives the "Temps D'Images Film Award for the film which shows in the most original way the importance of art in society" to the film "EL SISTEMA" by Paul Smaczny and Maria Stodtmeier for its conspicuousness and lifeliness in showing the tension between culture and the cruel reality of the barrios in Caracas. The film underlines the importance of the project "El Sistema" for the children and the community in general. It leaves the audience with its grand idea as well as the success of it and inspires to think about the great importance of art for the society."

11th International Panorama of ICCTUC Thessaloniki: Best Foreign Movie

Best Documentary
Orlando Hispanic Film Festival 2009

Grand Prix 'Golden Prague 2009'

"El Sistema was a powerful and inspiring reflection of a social experiment which has caught the imagination of the world. Paul Smaczny and Maria Stodtmeier brought the finest documentary skills to commemorate the philosophy of José Antonio Abreu. The result is a film which shows how music can change not only individual human lives but the world in general both today and in the future."

Ecofilms Festival

"An extraordinaire subject with far reaching implications that very few people know about. It’s an incredibly well made film in which it demonstrates the movement of the underprivileged children in the centre of the film as well as the bourgeois musicians who devised it."