British and German TV productions each won three International Emmys Monday night, including acting honours for Dustin Hoffman and Christiane Paul.
The centrepiece of the awards ceremony at the Hilton New York came when Tony Goldwyn, who stars as President Fitzgerald Grant in the Washington drama Scandal, presented the honorary International Emmy Founders Award to the show’s creator, producer and writer Shonda Rhimes, who also brought such hits as Grey’s Anatomy and How to Get Away with Murder to the small screen.
Hoffman received the award for best performance by an actor for the BBC One TV movie Roald Dahl’s Esio Trot. The Oscar-winning actor portrayed a lonely retired bachelor who hatches an audacious plan to woo the widow in the flat below who is overly fond of her pet tortoise.
Germany’s Paul garnered the best actress award for her performance in Untern Radar (Under the Radar) as a judge whose life is upended when her daughter is suspected of being responsible for a bombing in Berlin.
A total of 40 nominees from 15 countries competed in 10 categories for International Emmys, which honour excellence in TV programming outside the US. The ceremony was hosted by The Good Wife star Alan Cumming.
Britain’s Hoff the Record, with former Baywatch star David Hasselhoff playing a fictionalised, over-the-top version of himself, won in the comedy category. Capital, about residents of a South London suburb whose lives are impacted when their homes become valued at several million pounds in a soaring property market, won the award for TV movie/miniseries.
Germany also won Emmys for drama series for Deutschland 83, the story of an East German spy who infiltrates the West German army to steal Nato secrets. The award in the documentary category went to Krieg der Lugen (War of Lies), about an Iraqi refugee whose information about weapons of mass destruction passed through Western intelligence agencies and ultimately was used by the US to help justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
The award for arts programming went to Japan’s The Man Who Shot Hiroshima, which looks at Hollywood cinematographer Harry Mimura who returned to his native Japan before the Second World War and later was hired by the US government to shoot footage of life in the Japanese city months after it was devastated by an atom bomb.
Sweden’s Allt for Sverige (The Great Swedish Adventure) received the award for non-scripted entertainment. The reality TV show featured Swedish-Americans returning to the land of their roots for the first time to compete in events connected to Swedish traditions.
Other awards went to Brazil’s Verdades Secretas (Hidden Truths) for best telenovela and to Francisco, El Jesuita (Francis, the Jesuit), the story of the man who became the first pope from Latin America, for non-English language, US prime time programme.
Danish actress Birgitte Hjort Sorensen presented the honorary International Emmy Directorate Award to Maria Rorbye Ronn, chief executive officer and director general of the Danish Broadcasting Corporation, who pioneered the success of Nordic Noir drama around the world.
