Winners announced for 2020 Rose d’Or awards

This afternoon, the winners and recipients of the 2020 Rose d’Or Awards, which define the gold standard for excellence throughout the international entertainment industry, were announced by comedian Nish Kumar during a virtual ceremony, streamed on Rosedor.com.

Winners include Sex Education, The School That Tried To End Racism, Woke, Homefest: James Corden’s Late Late Show Special and Once Upon A Time In Iraq.

“In a year like no other and where the dress code is evening wear on the top, undies and slippers on the bot, it was a huge honour to be invited to host this incredibly special ceremony.” – Nish Kumar

Homefest: James Corden’s Late Late Show Special won the Innovation In The Time of Covid award while BBC Two’s critically acclaimed Once Upon A Time In Iraq was named winner of the Documentary category and was also chosen by the judges as this years’ Golden Rose recipient.

Netflix’s Sex Education was awarded the Comedy Drama and Sitcom trophy, and one of its stars  Ncuti Gatwa was also individually recognised with a Performance of the Year award. Channel 4’s The School That Tried To End Racism picked up the Reality and Factual Entertainment award, and Woke, featuring former New Girl star Lamorne Morris, was successful in the Comedy category.

Ncuti Gatwa was awarded for his performance as Eric in Sex Education

BBC Radio 4’s Tunnel 29 – telling the story of a student in Germany who escaped from one of the world’s most brutal dictatorships in 1961 and why, a few months later, he began tunnelling his way back in – was presented the Audio Entertainment award.

French production The Wonderbox was awarded the Studio Entertainment award, while in the Drama category, Germany’s Babylon Berlin saw off competition from the likes of shortlisted Normal People, The Capture and Baghdad Central to be the crowned winner this year.

Australia saw wins in the Children and Youth category for First Day and Social Media and Video Series category for Content. Victoria Small, the Argentinian telenova, won in the Soap or Telenova category, while the Arts award was presented to Germany’s Wim Wenders, Desperado – about the life’s work of one of the pioneers of New German Cinema.

The Lifetime Achievement Award, which honours a television personality for their exceptional contribution to the entertainment industry, has this year been presented to Sir David Attenborough to celebrate his 60-year career as a natural history broadcaster.

David Attenborough with his Lifetime Achievement gong

“When I started in television, it’s difficult to believe it but creatures like pangolins or sloths or armadillos were really quite unknown to the general public. Now of course, everybody knows what they are, and why? Not because of me particularly, but because of television. Television has told the world about the wild population, the wild part of the world, and that’s essential that we know about it and we know how it works, and we understand why it is that we are damaging it so badly.” – Sir David Attenborough

Daisy Edgar-Jones was awarded the first-ever Emerging Talent Award for her portrayal of Marianne in Normal People, after the show became a lockdown favourite earlier this year. The inaugural award has been instituted to recognise great new talent this year and every year.

“It’s been an honour to review this incredible body of work – produced before and during the pandemic. Congratulations to the winners, all our entrants and every production team member who made these great shows possible.” – Mark Rowland, Chair of the 2020 Judges

The Rose d’Or awards were first presented in 1961 in Montreux, Switzerland, where the annual ceremony remained for 40 years, before moving to Berlin and then to London in 2019. The 2020 awards – into which over 80 international judges had input – saw entries from every major territory in the world.