Intl. Emmy World Television Festival
The first Intl. Emmy World Television Festival will unspool this weekend in Gotham, with a kick-off party hosted by HBO tonight and culminating in the I-Emmy awards gala Monday night.
Event is organized by the Intl. Academy of Television Arts & Sciences and aims to showcase the best in television from all over the world. Awards are bestowed on foreign programs and individuals or companies that have made key contributions to the global TV biz.
This year, high-profile honorees include Oprah Winfrey and Britain's ITV, which is celebrating its 50th anni and is one of Europe's commercial powerhouses. Both will receive trophies Monday night at the Hilton in midtown Manhattan.
The weekend event incorporates and builds on the 7-year-old iEMMYs Festival, which traditionally offered attendees an opportunity to screen the Intl. Emmy Awards-nominated programs and meet with their producers and directors. Competitive categories include drama, docs, music & arts, kids and reality.
"The Intl. Emmy World Television Festival is a natural extension for our iEMMYs Festival," Bruce Paisner, who is prexy-CEO of the I-ATAS org as well as prexy of Hearst Entertainment, told
Daily Variety.
"This fest is definitely a first for television, a forum for outstanding programming from around the world," he added.
The newly expanded festival will feature screenings, panels and presentations from TV organizations in different countries, as well as lunches and cocktails hosted by international sponsors. Traditionally, more than 600 participants attend the iEMMYs Festival each year.
Highlights will include a News Coverage Panel, where foreign TV journalists will discuss the impact of the Internet on foreign news. Participants include ABC News foreign desk director Chuck Lustig and Afghanistan news producer for Ariana TV Mohamed Fayaz. Two Academy Foundation fellowships will also be bestowed: the Renato Pachetti Fellowship for News and the Peter Ustinov Young Scriptwriter Award.
The Intl. Emmy World Television Festival will also showcase the newly launched Ariana TV Network from Kabul, Afghanistan, and the sub-Sahara African Broadcast Network.
The Format Prize, presented for the first time at the fest, will honor the special skills of the companies that create and produce formats outside the U.S.
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