Asian Academy Creative Awards Crown National Winners

The Asian Academy Creative Awards has revealed the national winners to represent their nation or territory in December’s grand awards and gala final.

Singapore’s Mediacorp claimed 28 wins and is joined by global streamer Netflix and regional streamer Viu. Prime Video scored 22 wins. Ten came from India, and 12 were via production partnerships.

Hong Kong’s TVB and Malaysia’s Astro scored 15 wins, while Warner Bros. Discovery claimed 13, and iQIYI and ABS-CBN picked up ten. GMA claimed nine.

The Asian Academy Creative Awards reported an unprecedented 17 participating nations and territories, achieving a record of 310 national wins. The national winners round honors creative excellence within AsiaPac.

Regarding the the Asian Academy’s goddess of creativity award, this year sees some prominent past winners back in contention.

Best actor in a leading role winner for 2020, Arjo Atayde, is seeking his second goddess award when he flies the flag for the Philippines and ABS-CBN’s Cattleya Killer, which is also in contention for the best drama series.

Best actress in a leading role (2018), Indonesia’s Adinia Wirasti, is also back in the running, while best actress in a leading role (2019), India’s Shefali Shah, is up for best actress in a supporting role for Darlings (Netflix).

Lust Stories 2 (Netflix) is in contention for best feature film. Meanwhile, Oka Ontara is in the running for best entertainment host for The Bachelor Indonesia (WBD/HBO).

“This is the first time we’ve seen so many past winners all back in the competition, but history suggests winning a second gold within the performance categories is a tough challenge,” noted Michael McKay, AACA president and Emmy Award-winning producer. He added that “2023 has seen a number of entry records broken, so this may well be the year.”

Fifteen national winners from across the region are now in contention for the best drama series category, including Australia’s Safe Home (SBS), which also picked up national wins for Aisha Dee and Stevie Cruz Martin. One Cent Thief (Astro) will represent Malaysia while Nippon TV’s Rebooting snared best drama series for Japan, as well as best direction and best promo or trailer.

Netflix’s drama series Trial by Fire represents India in two categories (best actress in a leading role and best drama series). However, it is in Korea where Netflix has set the pace and goes into December’s gala final with The Glory. Narco-Saints also garnered Korea’s best direction award.

In Thailand, the Netflix celebrity chef feature Hunger has cooked up three national wins. Taiwan’s Netflix political drama Wave Makers notched four wins.

Amazon Prime Video’s Dahaad garnered two wins, while Jubilee snared four categories. Cattleya Killer took three national wins and the thriller A Silent Night claimed four.

Regional streaming platform Viu scored 28 wins in total and was especially strong in Malaysia (10), Thailand (7) and Indonesia (6).

Singapore topped the grand winners’ tally last year, mostly off the back of a strong factual slate. Singapore’s Ochre Pictures scored eight wins, including three for Third Rail, three for Last Madame: Sisters of the Night and two for Silent Wall. Mediacorp scored direct hits with Cash on Delivery.