Angola in the House at 41st International Emmys

Sean Bean getting acquainted with a little trophy at the 41st International Emmy Awards. Photo courtesy of International Emmys.

25 Nov. 2013/NEW YORK – ALL hands on deck, that is, Windeck, a telenovela (soap opera) from Angola.

Brazilian programming is represented exclusively by TV Globo. It's a given that the Brits will walk away winners.

So goes some of the news and olds from The 41st International Emmy Awards. Winners in nine categories were announced at the New York Hilton on Monday night.

Two special awards were also issued. Television producer J.J. Abrams received the 2013 International Emmy Founders Award and Co-CEO RTL Group & CEO RTL Germany, Anke Schaferkordt, received the 2013 International Emmy Directorate Award.

While "Windeck" went away awardless in the Telenovela category – that honor went to “Side by Side” from Brazil – it created some buzz at the 2013 International Emmy World Television Festival on Saturday and Sunday. The sudser, with some serious Brazilian telenovela undertones, was the first program of any kind from Angola to be nominated for an IEmmy. (See video of an episode above).

Elsewhere, notable winners included Sean Bean – one of three winners from the UK, which was represented in six categories – as Best Actor for his work as a transvestite on trial for murder in “Accused.” (See trailer above).

From France, “Les Revenants (The Returned),” about people thought dead who returned to their lives not knowing naught about their plight, took the Drama Series prize. (See Season 1, Episode 3 below).

Featuring a death to life theme, too, is “A Day for a Miracle (Das Wunder von Kärnten),” winner in the TV/Move/Mini-Series category. In this one from Germany, a surgeon does the unthinkable, and possibly the forbidden, when he takes some extreme measures to save the life / bring back to life a 4-year-old girl who had spent 30 minutes under water when she arrived on his operating table.

And that's the way it was.

Visit http://www.iemmys.tv/ to learn more about the 41st International Emmy Awards and 2013 International Emmy World Television Festival, including a full list of nominees and winners.

'Side by Side': Is World Big Enough for Digital and Film?

“IT’S exciting because it’s a reinvention of a new medium,” director Martin Scorsese says. ”If the photo chemical process has worked its way through our culture, we’re on to another level.

This is the reply of the Oscar-winning director of “Hugo” and other notable films to a question by Keanu Reeves about film and digital in “Side by Side.” The film opens today in New York City after screening in Los Angeles and Boston and will be rolling out in select cities across the country over the next couple of months.

Directed and written by Chris Kenneally, “Side by Side” in tracking the evolution of cinema asks whether digital should replace film for making movies or whether they can they co-exist. Host and producer KR puts these questions to a who’s who of directors. Responses are heartfelt, thoughtful, blunt and redolent of nostalgia. (See trailer above).

“You can’t shoot 3D on film,” James Cameron (“Avatar”) says emphatically. “So, film has been dead in my heart for 10 years.

Counters another, “I hate 3D. I put on those glasses and I get sick to my stomach. The whole 3D phenomenon, it’s a marketing scheme isn’t it?

“Side by Side” addresses a hot-button issue that is revolutionizing industries in real time. Can both formats exist – side by side – in a climate where audiences have become accustomed to unprecedented picture clarity?

More important, however, is that digital has democratized moviemaking. Just about anyone with access to digital equipment can make a film – even on a phone. But what of the adverse effects on the economy if movies are only made digitally? Is that the sound of jobs drying up?

The debate almost parrots what is happening in print journalism. The advent of digital will continue to challenge the status quo and traditions of any number of industries; consider what’s happening in music.

CK will do Q&As after the New York screenings of “Side by Side” at both Quad Cinema (http://www.quadcinema.com/) and the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center. (http://www.bit.ly/Owi0dK)

One hopes that both digital and film can co-exist – even if it is a fragile one like with newspapers/periodicals and online, for it would seem that the consequences of wholly abandoning film for digital would be enormous. Yet there are those who – if not exactly calling for the death of film – have walked away from it into the warm embrace of digital.

“I really felt I should call film on the phone and say I met someone,” says Steven Soderbergh (“The Hunger Games”).

"Side by Side" is available on VOD all over the United States and on VOD in Canada exclusively through Rogers Anyplace TV (http://www.rogersondemand.com/).Visit http://www.sidebysidethemovie.com/ to learn more about "Side by Side."