CNA clinches one gold, three silvers at Cannes Corporate Media & TV Awards

SINGAPORE: CNA bagged four trophies – one gold and three silver – at the prestigious Cannes Corporate Media & TV Awards on Thursday (Sep 26).

All four awards were for documentaries.

Women of the Wetlands took gold in the Current Affairs category, while The Untold Legend of Vickie Dutton, Reaching the Unreached and Walk the Line clinched silver in the History and Personalities/Portraits, Ethnology and Sociology, and Investigative Documentaries and Reports categories respectively.

CNA’s parent company Mediacorp also took home a silver in the Trailers and Teasers for Documentaries and Reports category – Chinese info-ed series Tuesday Report picking up the trophy for its trailer for its series 7 Essentials.

The company received a total of five “Dolphin” trophies at this year’s awards ceremony, which was held in Cannes, France, on Thursday.

Women of the Wetlands is a story about how climate change has impacted the women of the Sundarbans and how they are fighting back. 

In the aftermath of tropical cyclones which frequently hit the area, opportunistic criminals prey on the families and women in these devastated communities, where some of these girls are kidnapped and sold to brothels.

The lucky few who manage to escape or are rescued return home only to confront the social stigma attached to their traumatic experience. 

Produced by Peddling Pictures, The Untold Legend of Vickie Dutton, meanwhile, traces filmmaker Larissa Ong’s intimate journey to rediscover the life of Vickie Dutton, a fashion designer and Singapore’s first Malay model whose designs in her monthly magazine columns inspired many in the 1960s.

Reaching the Unreached, on the other hand, focuses on the issue of high healthcare inequality in Asia, where there is on average only one doctor per 1,000 inhabitants in some of the least developed countries on the continent.

Produced by Kraken Films, the series follows everyday doctor heroes on their journeys to isolated communities.

Finally, Walk the Line turns the spotlight on Chinese citizens entering the US illegally via its southern border in the hope of finding a better life in the Land of the Free – in spite of the dangers and treacherous journey.

It follows CNA correspondent Wei Du, who travels the route with Chinese migrants and tries to understand why they were driven to such desperation and if the American Dream is all it is made out to be.

In a statement on Friday, Mediacorp CEO Tham Loke Kheng said: “We are honoured that our content continues to receive acclaim on respected international stages such as the Cannes Corporate Media & TV Awards. Our five wins this year reaffirm our strengths in telling informative and insightful stories with a distinctly Asian perspective.

“My warmest congratulations to our production teams and partners on the fine achievement! I hope that we draw inspiration from these wins and continue creating great content that resonates with audiences both at home and across the globe.”

The four award-winning CNA documentaries are available on mewatch.