Al Gore, BBC scoop Emmy awards
2007-11-20 07:56
New York - Former Vice President Al
Gore won another honour on Monday when he received the Founders
Award at the International Emmy Awards, which also gave a top
prize to a controversial British television film about the
assassination of President George W Bush.
Death of President, which explores the aftermath of
Bush's assassination in Chicago in October 2007, won the
International Emmy for best TV movie or miniseries, leading a
pack of winners from the United Kingdom and the BBC that
dominated the 35th annual awards.
The award was presented moments after Gore accepted his
honour, an annual prize that recognised his role in launching
Current TV, a cable and satellite network that uses
viewer-created content.
'Democratising TV'
Gore, accepting from Oscar-winning actor Robert De Niro,
said in brief remarks that the future of world democracy
"depends to a surprising degree on democratising TV."
Current TV was thus born of the idea of connecting the internet to
television, Gore said.
The former vice president, who ran against Bush in 2000 in
a disputed election that was decided by a divided US Supreme
Court, also used the occasion to lobby on behalf of the
environment, saying "the climate crisis is by far the most
serious challenge the human race has ever faced."
Earlier this year Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize, and
graced the stage at the Academy Awards when the documentary
about his lecture tour on global warming, An Inconvenient
Truth won the Oscar. He also won a prime-time Emmy for Current
TV.
De Niro injected a political note, saying that Gore had
been "voted out of office by the Supreme Court" in 2000.
UK wins several awards
Most all of competitive awards went to United Kingdom
productions, which took seven of the nine prizes including best
drama series for Granada Television's The Street and best
comedy for the BBC's Little Britain Abroad.
The Street's Jim Broadbent tied for best actor with
Pierre Bokma of the Netherlands' The Chosen One, while Muriel
Robin was one of the few non-UK winners as best actress for
Marie Besnard - The Poisoner, in which she played a real
life black widow serial killer.
Best documentary honours went to Stephen Fry - The Secret
Life of the Manic Depressive, while How Do You Solve a
Problem Like Maria? which chronicles a contest to star as
Maria von Trapp in a London production of The Sound of Music,
was voted best non-scripted, or reality show.
Best Children's programme
The best children's programme honour went to Poland's The
Magic Tree while best arts programming was won by Simon
Schama's Power of Art: Bernini, another BBC co-production.
A special award co-presented with Unicef went to Thailand's
From South to North, From East to West, an Aids education
programme written by children.
French television executive Patrick Le Lay was honoured with
the Directorate Award in recognition of his guiding the growth
of TF1 into France's leading channel since its privatisation,
and helping to usher in new digital platforms.
South Africa had been nominated in three categories for the 35th International Emmy Awards. Penguin Films' Home Affairs had received two nominations for best drama and best actress (Brenda Ngxoli), whereas Sorted by TOM Pictures/SABC had been nominated for best comedy.