Five Irish television productions are nominated for Prix Europa 2008, the biggest European multi platform competition for television, radio and emerging media. The awards ceremony will take place in Berlin and Potsdam from 18 to 25 October 2008.
From the 582 entries from 36 European countries, 213 productions were chosen to compete across eight separate categories. RTÉ dominates the Irish nominations with a total of nine projects shortlisted across the awards categories. Four television productions, the RTÉ Young People's TV website We TV online and four RTÉ Radio productions are nominated in six different categories. Tom Collins’ IFTA winning feature film ‘Kings’, entered into the competition by broadcaster TG4, is in the running for the TV Fiction award alongside the recently broadcasted ‘Whistleblower’, directed by Dermot Boyd and produced by Saffron Pictures.
According to RTÉ, ‘Whistlebolwer’, which aired earlier this week, attracted an average 39% share of the viewing public at the times of broadcast with 580,000* viewers per episode, when screened on RTÉ One 31 August; 1 September 2008.
The Documentary Category includes Charlie Mc Carthy’s ‘Being John Banville’ which broadcasted in January of this year and explores the Man Booker Prize winner and his relationship with his agent. The doc was produced by Ice Box Productions.
In the TV IRIS Multicultural Programmes Category ‘Human Traffic’ has been shortlisted. The programme is the third episode in RTÉ ‘Disasters’ series directed by David Whelan which tells the tragic story of the thirteen foreign refugees trapped in a goods container en-route to Wexford.
Also up for an award in the Current Affairs Category is ‘Prime Time Investigates – Cocaine’ directed by Paul Loughlin and Sean Mac Giolla Phadraig while nominated in the emerging media category is the online RTE popular culture programme ‘WE TV’ online rte.ie/wetv/wetvonline.
-The Prix Europa, founded in 1987 by the European Cultural Foundation and the Council of Europe, aims to promote the trademark "Made in Europe", while being a forum for quality programmes and young talent.
