Actor Dong-Geun Yoo Announces  

Seoul International Drama Awards 2017 Nominations

 

Seoul International Drama Awards 2017 receives record-breaking number of drama entries and countries of origin

 

 

-       Reached record number of 266 submissions from 55 countries for categories including TV Movie, Miniseries, Serial Drama, and Comedy

-       Countries such as Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Uzbekistan receives spotlight as new entrants at this year’s Seoul International Drama Awards

-       SDA announces the shortlist of 29 dramas and 27 individuals that include Korean dramas such as “Red Teacher” and “Strong Girl Bong-Soon”

 

  

Seoul, August 17, 2017 - The Seoul Drama Awards Organizing Committee (Committee Chairman, Dae-Young Ko) announced the program and individual nominees for its annual Seoul International Drama Awards (SDA) at a press conference held at the Seoul Foreign Correspondents’ Club.

 

Entering its 12^th year, the Seoul International Drama Awards saw record high number of countries and drama submissions with a total of 266 entries from 55 different countries. Despite the absence of submissions from China, for the first time in 12 years, SDA still successfully achieved to break its own submission record.

 

“It was a great pleasure to see this year’s record-breaking submissions proved that the SDA is being recognized as a prominent international awards ceremony for dramas,” said Dong-Geun Yoo, Actor and Director of the Korean Broadcasting Actors Association. He added, “It was especially harder to judge this year, as the shows submitted from various countries were really good in terms of both quality and popularity.”

 

The Seoul International Drama Awards shortlisted a total of 29 pieces, which consists 8 TV Movies, 4 Comedies, 9 Mini-Series, and 8 Serial Dramas. Each section of the entry will be scored by the jury based on quality, creativity, and popularity. Individual category nominees will also be awarded best director, screenwriter, actor, and actress.

  

Among this year’s lineup, Redemption Road, based on the novel by John Hart, is nominated in three sections for best drama and best screenwriter and best actor. In addition, South Korean drama The Red Teacher, featuring Dong-Hui Lee and So-Min Jung, has been nominated in the TV Movie category after it received critical acclaim for great acting and well-written storyline.

 

 

Another Korean drama series Strong Girl Bong-soon is competing against Germany’s Charité and This Is Us from the United States for the Mini-Series category. Brave and Beautiful (Turkey) and Detective Anna (Russia) have been nominated for Serial Drama. Finally, Fleabag (UK) is competing against The Case (Sweden) Mozart in Jungle S3 (U.S.A) for best comedy.

 

Furthermore, a total of six nominees for Best Actor and seven nominees for Best Actress including Ronald Zehrfeld of Redemption Road (Germany), Gen Hoshino of The Full-Time Wife Escapist (Japan), Bo-Young Park of Strong Girl Bong-Soon (South Korea), Luise Heyer of The Glassblower (Germany), and Aleksandra Nikiforova of Detective Anna (Russia) have been announced, respectively.

 

For Best Director, seven directors including Dan Fogelman of This Is Us (U.S.A) and Viktor Polesny of Monster (Czech Republic) are nominated. Also, Jae-Jung Song of ‘W’ (South Korea) is competing against Phoebe Waller-Bridge of ‘Fleabag’ (U.K.) and Heide Schwochow of ‘Redemption Road’ (Germany) for Best Screenwriter.

 

The Seoul International Drama Awards 2017 will be aired live from the KBS Hall in Yeouido, September 7 (5:30-6:50 PM) on KBS2.

 

The Seoul Drama Awards Organizing Committee has also prepared various supporting events. Each event is free to attend and open to public. Starting with Drama Music Concert scheduled on September 1(Fri), the event will take place on September 15(Fri), 16(Sat), 22(Fri) and 23(Sat) at the Yeouido Floating Stage.

 

###

 

Attached are a complete list of nominees, participants, and a brief profile of jurors regarding the Seoul International Drama Awards 2017

A highlight footage of the press conference and the highlight video of final nominees are available if requests

About the Seoul International Drama Awards 2017

This year, SDA received a total of 266 submissions of TV dramas from 55 different countries which proves that it is growing as one of the most recognizable global drama awards. Across the competition categories, TV Movie, Mini-Series, Serial Drama and Comedy, an overall outstanding accomplishment that scores the highest on quality, creativity, and popularity will receive the Grand Prize. The awards ceremony will be held at KBS hall Yeouido on Thursday, September 7 and will air live on KBS2 TV.

 

Contacts (Edelman Korea):

Leo Choi                          02-2022-8282   010-7933-2630              leo.choi@edelman.com

Sylvia Chang                     02-2022-8283    010-4950-2535               sylvia.chang@edelman.com

Katie In                         02-2022-8268    010-2336-9272           katie.in@edelman.com