The Indian challenge at the 49th International Emmy Awards, which concluded at Casa Cipriani in New York City on late Monday night (US Eastern Time), ended with Nawazuddin Siddiqui losing out to Scottish actor David Tennant in the Best Performance by an Actor category.
Ram Madhvani’s ‘Aarya’ was edged out by the Israeli spy thriller series ‘Tehran’, which got The International Emmy for Drama Series. And Vir Das’s comic take on Indian history, ‘Vir Das: For India’, made way for yet another Netflix acquisition, ‘Call My Agent: Season 4’, which walked away with The International Emmy for Comedy.
Tennant, who became famous as The Doctor in the British TV series ‘Doctor Who’, was honoured for his work in the three-part crime drama miniseries ‘Des’, which centres around the Scottish serial killer Dennis Nilsen, who was arrested in 1983, after the discovery of human remains which had blocked a drain near his London home.
Moshe Zander’s ‘Tehran’ tracks the story of a Mossad agent on her first mission in the Iranian capital, which also happens to be her place of birth.
The Indian adaptation of ‘Call My Agent!’, the French comedy series that takes us behind the scenes of the world of celebrity, premiered not long ago in its avatar of ‘Call My Agent: Bollywood’.
The International Emmy Awards honour the best in television programming outside of the US. This year, the awards were presented in 11 categories and the nominees were from 24 countries.
The ceremony started with the event host Nigerian-American actress-comedian Yvonne Orji taking the stage dressed in a mustard gown. She kickstarted the show with a few crisp punchlines revolving around the pandemic era and the cultural differences highlighting the overarching theme of the International Emmy Awards.
Orji went on to mention the hugely popular South Korean series ‘Squid Game’ and also gave a shout out to Egypt for getting the first-ever nomination in the International Emmy Awards.
She then invited presenter Brian d’Arcy James on stage, who announced the winner for the Arts Programming category. The International Emmy went to ‘Kubrick By Kubrick’, a documentary from France built around previously unheard audiotaped interviews with the maestro, Stanley Kubrick.
Joshua Jackson presented the trophy to Hayley Squires as she bagged The International Emmy for Best Performance by an Actress in the four-part British drama series ‘Adult Material’. ‘INSIDE’, the comic thriller from New Zealand inspired by the lockdown induced by the Covid-19 pandemic, The International Emmy for Short-Form Series.
Univision Network’s ’21st Annual Latin Grammy Awards’ was the award in the Non-English Language US Primetime Programme category. The Netflix-acquired Thai documentary ‘Hope Frozen: A Quest To Live Twice’ was honoured for the way it narrated the story of a Thai couple who decide to cryogenically preserve their three-year-old daughter’s body after she dies of brain cancer in 2015.
British reality singing competition television series ‘The Masked Singer’ got the award for Non-Scripted Entertainment, the top honour for TV Movie/Mini-Series went to the Norwegian historical drama ‘Atlantic Crossing’, and The International Emmy for Telenovela was conferred upon the Chinese television series ‘The Song of Glory’.