Gomorrah, Happy Valley, Lilyhammer Among Winners in Monte Carlo

MONTE CARLO: The Golden Nymph Award winners at the Monte-Carlo Television Festival included the U.K.’s The Missing and Happy Valley, Italy’s Gomorrah and Norway’s Lilyhammer, with the U.S.’s NCIS again scoring the International Audience Award as the most-watched drama around the world.

Tiger Aspect’s Marvellous swept the TV movie category, being named best television film and scoring wins for stars Gemma Jones and Toby Jones. Company Pictures’ The Missing, a BBC/Starz co-pro, won for best miniseries and outstanding actress in a miniseries for Frances O’Connor. Anthony Hayes from the Australian mini Secrets & Lies was named outstanding actor.

Gomorrah took the prize for best international drama, and scored a performance win for actor Marco D’Amore. The best European drama went to BBC’s Happy Valley, whose star, Sarah Lancashire, was named outstanding actress.

In comedy, Entertainment One’s Welcome to Sweden took the international award, while the best European comedy category went to Rubicon’s Lilyhammer. In the performance categories, the winners were Belen Rueda for the Spanish series B&B Magazine and Steven Van Zandt for Lilyhammer.

The International TV Audience Awards went to NCIS (drama), How I Met Your Mother (comedy) and The Bold and the Beautiful (soap opera). The annual International Audience Award is jointly presented by Monte-Carlo Television Festival and Eurodata TV Worldwide to the shows that delivered the highest ratings worldwide.

In the news category, there were wins for Spain’s Fast Track Injustice (news doc), Poland’s The Ghost People (current affairs doc), Hong Kong’s Suspected Police Brutality Against Occupy Protester (TV news item) and Canada’s CBC News Network: The Ottawa Shootings (24-hour news program).

The Golden Nymphs marked the end of this year’s Monte-Carlo Television Festival, now in its 55th year.

“The 55th edition of the Monte-Carlo Television Festival has surpassed all our expectations,” said Laurent Puons, the CEO of the Monte-Carlo Television Festival. "We are delighted to have been the catalyst which has brought together so many people from across the entertainment business to meet and celebrate the wide range of programming content of today and many of the much-loved shows of the past. I would particularly like to thank our jury members who have worked very hard this week to select the Golden Nymph Award winners from the extremely high level of entries from around the world. I congratulate all those who have been presented with the Golden Nymph this evening. Finally, I would also like to thank our many sponsors and, of course, all the Festival fans for their contribution to this special event."