The Venice TV Award 2021 Announces Winners
The Venice TV Award has announced the winners for the 2021 competition.
TV programming has always kept us informed, entertained, comforted and connected, but that fact has been even more pronounced over the last two, turbulent years. "It is a great time to be a viewer today, for the quality and amazing variety of work that viewers can choose from,” said Karim Bartoletti, executive board member, Italian Association of Production Companies, partner at Indiana Production and one of this year’s jurors. "It is a great time to watch TV. An award show like the Venice TV Awards, that recognizes and values such entertainment media, is relevant and necessary."
That awards show, held two weeks after the Venice Film Festival and presided over by a jury of leading international TV experts, saw trophies handed out to international TV shows across 16 separate categories; TV Series, TV Movie, Performing Arts, Documentary, Light Entertainment, News, Program Promotion, Branded Entertainment, Sports, Children/Youth, Comedy, Reality TV, Technical Quality, Cross-Platform, Telenovela and New Talent.
In 2021, work from the United Kingdom were the most successful, winning five Golden Trophies, with It’s a Sin, the Channel 4 drama about the lives of three young men who endure the horror of the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s, as well as the prejudice faced by gay men during that decade, winning in the TV Series category.
Another Channel 4 production, The School That Tried To End Racism, triumphed in the Documentary category, while Best TV Film was awarded to BBC1’s Anthony, a film about how the life of a talented young man could have turned out had he not been murdered in an unprovoked racist attack.
Sky won in Comedy with Two Weeks To Liv and in Light Entertainment, for Rob & Romesh Vs.
Globo TV in Brazil also won big, with 3 Gold Trophies (Telenovela, Cross Programming, Branded Entertainment).
Proving that great television knows no borders, awards for excellence went to a spread of 29 different countries, with outstanding work rewarded this year from United Kingdom, Germany, Brazil, India, France, USA, Japan, Sweden, Italy, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Spain, Austria, Australia, Belgium, The Netherlands, South Africa, Turkey, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Russia, Israel and Singapore.
The Venice TV Award is supported by the International Music + Media Centre [IMZ], the European Group of Television Advertising [egta], and the Association of Commercial TV [ACT], and highlights the fact that television is a $260 billion global industry which operates more than 38,500 television channels, reaching 1.6 billion homes worldwide.
“The promising future of television must be encouraged,” stated Malin Häger from egta.
