An upbeat and surprisingly sunny MIPCOM ended on a high note as we celebrated the nominees and winners of the 6th MIPCOM Cannes Diversify TV Awards.
For the 2nd year running, the Awards ceremony took place, in the Grand Auditorium in the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès the largest theatre in Cannes and the venue for the city’s major annual red carpet events, such as the Cannes film festival's Palme d'Or. The enthusiastic audience included those who attended our first Diversify TV events 7 years ago in a small but welcoming bar 2 blocks away from Cannes famous Croisette. The greatly expanded audience now includes major broadcasters, distributors, major studios, buyers, TV executives and content professionals from all over the world and guarantees that the underrepresented producers and their untold stories will be mentioned in all the top industry press and they will gain access to potential global buyers and audiences.
But as MIPCOM head, Lucy Smith and Founding Partner A+E Networks, Mark Garner stated in their opening statement ‘this has never been about box ticking’.
“All the winners today have been recognized not only by their peers but by specialists and advocacy groups in the diversity and inclusion area, an extraordinary and meaningful accolade that also stands as an example of what’s possible in TV.”
30 nominees waited to see if they had won in their categories.
This year saw 190 entries from 27 Countries and the judges were astounded by the standard of the entries. The entries came from all other the world, and although they included entries from major broadcasters or territories, like the BBC, and streamers like Amazon there were a fair number of independents, smaller territories with underrepresented communities. Slowly but surely we are helping everybody’s voice to be heard. They are all winners.
Al Jazeera host , moderator and diversity activist, Femi Oke, lead the proceedings bringing both grace and gravitas to the event. She started off by thanking all the partners including Diversify TV, founding partner A and E, All3Media and charities, including The Anne Frank Trust, APF France handicap, Fondation Mozaïk, GADIM, GLAAD, the Minority Rights Group, ODA, SCOPE, and Stonewall -a long list of supporters and this year Femi welcomed new sponsor Netflix to the Diversify family. Backstage the presenters waited for Femi to call them to the stage to announce the winners.
The presenters of the awards were diverse, industry leaders who punctuated the proceedings with inspiration messages and thought-provoking speeches. They included Olivier Laouchez, CEO Trace Studios, CEO, Maria Kennedy CEO of Little Engine, Marie Clements of Clements Media, Nadine Thornhill and Spencer West from the YouTube series Everybody Curious, Maria Perez from MIP Cancun, DiversifyTv’s Bunmi Akintonwa, Maartje Horchner EVP Content, ALL3Media and Netflix’s Amy Takahara .
Alyssa Milano, activist, ally and actress introduced a new DiversifyTV Behind the Scenes Impact Award which she presented to FWD-Doc an international collective of filmmakers with disabilities who advocate increasing the visibility and support for, direct access to opportunities, networking, and employment for D/deaf, disabled and neurodiverse filmmakers.
The Final Award was a third new region- specific award - recognising that diversity looks different in every territory in the world.
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