Source: Channel 4
ABC Factual series Old People’s Home For 4 Year Olds and Magical Land of Oz have won golds at the prestigious New York Festivals TV and Film Awards, which recognise the world’s most innovative and entertaining screen content.
Old People’s Home For 4 Year Olds, produced by Endemol Shine, scored Gold in the Social Issues documentary category at the awards, announced this week.
The unique social experiment also received a Silver Award from the United Nations Department of Global Communications, for exemplifying the aims and ideas of the UN. The uplifting series, which won the 2019 AACTA Award for Best Documentary or Factual Program, demonstrates the physical and mental benefits of bringing together the very young and very old in a retirement home.
Magical Land of Oz, produced by Northern Pictures and narrated by Barry Humphries, won the Gold Award in the Nature and Wildlife documentary category, for exploring the challenges faced by Australian wildlife in a land of extremes.
Josie Mason-Campbell, ABC Head of Entertainment & Factual content, said high-quality Australian content was rightly making its mark on the international stage. “The ABC’s Old People’s Home For 4 Year Olds and Magical Land of Oz exemplify the outstanding standard of documentary making in Australia. Their gold awards at the New York Festivals show that compelling and creative stories about the sights, sounds and people of Australia are among the best in the world.”
Four ABC programs were nominated for this year’s awards, more than any other Australian broadcaster. Catalyst’s “Face Surgeons: Inside the Craniofacial Unit” was a Finalist in the Health/Medical Information category. Foreign Correspondent’s “Mother Courage” was nominated in the international affairs category.
This year’s New York Festivals TV and Film Awards attracted entries from more than 50 countries. According to the organisers, the “award winners were compelling in subject matter, ambitious in scope [and] off the chart in degree of difficulty, resulting in content that impressed judges from around the world”.
