Sofia Helin And The Bridge Win The Double At The C21 Awards

The winners were announced for the prestigious C21 International Drama Awards Show at the BFI in London on Wednesday evening. In excess of 200 programmes were entered this year, with the finalists chosen from votes cast by 70 leading drama commissioners.

Best Female Performance: Sofia Helin

Sofia Helin, who plays Saga Noren in The Bridge, won the award for Best Female Performance against stiff competition from Gillian Anderson (The Fall), Sharon Rooney (My Mad Fat Diary), Constance Zimmer (UnReal) and Moa Gammel (Jordskott).

In an open letter to svt.se published on Tuesday Sofia Helin thanked viewers for their support:

“I am happy, proud and grateful for all the appreciation. The Bridge III is professionally the most demanding and challenging thing that I have done so far in my life. Therefore, it is especially gratifying that our efforts touched the audience,” she wrote.

After the ceremony Christian Wikander, Head Of Drama for SVT, wrote in a text to Expressen: “Fantastic. Sofia’s role interpretation is worthy of all the attention. Congratulations.”

Best Returning Drama Series: The Bridge

The Bridge III won Best Returning Drama Series against The Walking Dead, The Returned and The Fall. It was also nominated in the category of Best Non-English-Language Drama, but lost out to Deutschland ’83.

In response to the success of The Bridge, creator and lead writer Hans Rosenfeldt, wrote in a text message to Expressen:

“To win in the competition against The Walking Dead and The Returned is so incredibly flattering and fun and shows that we really have made a series that is world class.”

The Bridge Season 3 had a strong opening in Scandinavia with 3.3m viewers tuning in for its premiere, whilst in the UK it recorded its biggest audience yet and doubled BBC4’s slot average with 1.2m.

Full List Of Winners

BEST CONSUMER MARKETING CAMPAIGN
HumansChannel 4 / AMC
What happens when technology has advanced to the point where it begins to truly take over our lives, affecting our relationships? Humans is written by Sam Vincent and Jonathan Brackley (Spooks: The Greater Good) and is set in a parallel present where the latest must-have gadget is a Synth – a highly developed robotic servant.

BEST DIGITAL ORIGINAL
Dixi Unchained
CBBC
Dixi Unchained is a follow-up to Dixi, a murder mystery about the hunt for the serial hacker of a social media site. Dixi Unchained plays with the teen horror genres and centres on characters who are haunted by a chain message that follows them offline and into a creepy forest.

BEST TV MOVIE
How To Murder Your Wife
TVNZ
How To Murder Your Wife transforms a grisly true crime into a black comedy with a distinctly New Zealand slant to it. It’s a universal tale in which every character surprises and each new step is unexpected and unpredictable.

BEST CASTING
Deutschland ’83
RTL Germany
Spy thriller Deutschland 83 is a suspenseful coming-of-age story set against the real culture wars and political events of Germany in the 1980s. The series was the first German-language drama to air in the US on SundanceTV and continues to travel worldwide.

BEST RETURNING SERIES
The Bridge
DR1 / SVT1
When a body is found on a bridge that links two countries, two detectives work together to take down a serial killer operating on both sides of the border. The Bridge is a Peabody award-winning crime thriller from Endemol Shine’s Filmlance International.

BEST MINISERIES
The Book of Negroes
CBC / BET
A universal story of loss, courage and triumph, The Book of Negroes recounts the journey of Aminata Diallo, an indomitable African woman sold into slavery who navigates the outbreak of the American Revolution and takes refuge in Nova Scotia before securing her freedom in England.

BEST MALE PERFORMANCE
Narcos
Netflix
Wagner Moura plays Pablo Escobar in Narcos, which looks at the fight to take down the drugs kingpin. Moura’s performance is critical to Narcos’ success, as it follows everyone involved in the struggle, from the Colombian government to DEA agents, police and US officials.

BEST FEMALE PERFORMANCE
The Bridge
DR1 / SVT1
The same strong creative team is back with a third season of this award-winning series.

BEST ENGLISH-LANGUAGE DRAMA
Wolf Hall
BBC2
Wolf Hall became BBC2’s most popular drama, averaging 4.4 million viewers a week and a 15.8% audience share. After immense prior scrutiny given the success of the novels, the programme aired to near universal acclaim.

BEST NON-ENGLISH-LANGUAGE DRAMA
Deutschland ’83
RTL Germany
Deutschland 83 has been picked up by 20 broadcasters worldwide. The eight-parter was created by Anna Winger and Joerg Winger and reveals the experiences of Germans from both sides of the Berlin Wall during the peak of Cold War tensions. The series was hailed as ‘more exciting that pumped-up American inventions’ by the New York Times.

BEST FALL SEASON NETWORK SHOW
Limitless
CBS
Picking up where the feature film left off, Limitless follows Brian Finch (Jake McDorman) as he discovers the power of the brain-boosting drug NZT. From executive producer Bradley Cooper, the fast-paced drama explores what happens when there are no limits to man’s potential.

EDITOR’S CHOICE AWARD
Narcos
Netflix
From filmmaker Jose Padilha (Elite Squad, Robocop) comes an inside look at the men who would stop at nothing to take down Pablo Escobar. Narcos is an unfiltered look at the war that changed the drug trade forever.