Jennifer Aniston and our own Malini De (Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahin's Pari) may soon have something in common! How's that? Simple. The Emmy Awards are coming to India!
For the handful that aren't aware about them, the International Emmy Awards judge television's best programmes produced and aired outside the US.
The person who made this possible is Anil Wanvari, Board Member of the International Academy of Television, Arts and Sciences, founded in 1969, which presents the Emmy awards. Wanvari also owns the Indian television portal, indiantelevision.com.
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The two categories to be judged this year are 'Comedy' and 'Non-scripted Entertainment.' Of the 26 international entries, three are from India. The organisers are tight-lipped about the names of the Indian entries though.
The other categories include Best Performance by an actor, Best Performance by an actress, Arts Programming, Breaking News, Children and Young People, Continuing News Coverage, Documentary, Drama Series and TV movie/ mini-series.
The all-Indian jury for the Asia/ Africa and Middle-East regions comprises 21 film and TV professionals like Jaaved Jaafrey, Saakshi Tanwar, Simone Singh (who incidentally, presented an award at the Emmy Awards Gala in 2003), Cyrus Oshidar, Nikhil Alva, Puneet Goenka, Aakash Khurana and Rajeev Mehra. Judging Manager Sandy Clark says, "India is a very developed film and TV industry. So the Academy thought it appropriate to let the country's professionals judge international TV programmes."
Jaaved Jaafrey adds, "The Emmy Awards is a great platform for Indian TV professionals to get a feel of international programming and it has, in a way, put Indian TV on the world map. I am really happy to be a part of this."
The 2004 international Emmy Award for Comedy was won by Berlin Berlin from Germany and The Kumars at No 42 from the UK in 2003. In the Non-scripted Entertainment category, the winners were Without Prejudice? and Brat Camp from the UK and Without Prejudice?, in 2003 and 2004, respectively.