Belfast based Sixteen South has won the Best Pre-School Programme Award at the UK Broadcast Awards for its mixed-media animation series ‘Lily’s Driftwood Bay’ whose cast includes stars Stephen Fry, Richard Dormer, Ardal O’Hanlon and Peter Mullan.
Speaking after the win, Colin Williams, Creative Director at Sixteen South, said: ‘Stunning, it’s absolutely stunning to win this prestigious award, voted for by our peers in the television industry. The judges recognised the programme for its story and heart and we very much put our hearts and souls into the creation of every episode. Each episode of Lily’s Driftwood Bay is rich in its storyline which is delivered by an A-list cast.’
Already popular in the UK, US and Australia, ‘Lily’s Driftwood Bay’ was awarded the Recommended seal by the Parent’s Choice organisation in the USA. Judges said that the reason ‘Lily’s Driftwood Bay’ should win the Parent’s Choice award was due to its ‘simple but entertaining stories’. They also said that Lily herself had a ‘charming little voice’ and that ‘Lily’s Driftwood Bay’ has all the elements to captivate very young viewers and distinguishing it from many other children’s series is its art direction.
It was also recently confirmed that the Belfast-born series will begin airing in Brunei, Finland, Germany and Hong Kong this year. It has just been released as a TV box set on Sky and is available on Netflix for viewers in USA and Canada, with UK and Ireland to follow later in the year.
Colin Williams added: ‘It has always been our vision that our stories should be enjoyed by every child in every home in every country and to see ‘Lily’s Driftwood Bay’ travel to such far off places is amazing and really humbling for all of us on the team.’
‘Lily’s Driftwood Bay’ received funding from the Northern Ireland Screen Fund supported by Invest NI and part funded by the European Regional Development Fund.