Congratulations to Irish Director Emer Reynolds on Winning an Emmy Award for Irish Documentary The Farthest
Posted: 2nd October 2018
Huge congratulations to Irish director Emer Reynolds and producer John Murray on winning an Emmy Award for their Fís Éireann/Screen Ireland-supported documentary, The Farthest, in the category of Outstanding Science and Technology Documentary. The 39th News and Documentary Emmy Award ceremony took place last night in New York.
Commenting on the major prize Fís Éireann/Screen Ireland Chief Executive James Hickey said “Huge congratulations to Emer and John. I’m absolutely delighted to see them continuing to be recognised for their excellent work on The Farthest. Irish creative feature documentary making is going from strength to strength over the last number of years and Emer Reynolds is one of the best creative documentary directors working in the business. Major creative documentaries on this scale are incredibly difficult to finance and to produce, so a major award like this will hopefully help that process.”
Described by Screen Daily as a “thoughtful, intelligent” and a “soothing, deeply moving film”, The Farthest, has received worldwide critical acclaim, following screenings at the Tribeca Film Festival, the Galway Film Fleadh, the Edinburgh International Film Festival and the Audi Dublin International Film Festival (ADIFF) — where it scooped the coveted AUDI-ence award as well as Best Irish Documentary and the George Byrne Maverick Award, which was presented to Reynolds.
The Farthest tells the extraordinary story of one of humankind’s greatest achievements — NASA’s Space Voyagers. The documentary celebrates these magnificent machines, the men and women who built them and the vision that propelled them farther than anyone could ever have hoped. The Farthest was nominated in two categories including Outstanding Science and Technology Documentary category and for Outstanding Lighting Direction and Scenic Design.
Other Irish nominated projects at the Emmys included: Elián, directed by Ross McDonnell and Tim Golden and produced by Brendan Byrne and Trevor Birney , nominated in the Outstanding Investigative Documentary category; and Forever Pure, directed by Maya Zinshtein, and produced by Alan Maher which was nominated for Outstanding Politics and Government Documentary in the Independent Lens strand of the award.
The Farthest was supported by Fís Éireann/Screen Ireland, HHMI Tangled Bank Studios, RTÉ, BBC, ZDF, Arte and PBS.