KOREA.COM

On July 26, the drama series nominated by the seventh Seoul Drama Awards were announced.

From 24 drama series selected in the preliminary round, one that shows the best quality, creativity, and popularity will be selected as the winner of the grand prize. The Best Series and the Second Best Series will also be selected from among them. The winners will be unveiled at the awards.

For short series, a total of eight series, including The Peak from Korea and Helpless from Japan, have been nominated. The Peak, which attracted a lot of attention as Shinhwa’s Kim Dong Wan played the leading role, is a story about the famous independence activist Lee Yook Sa’s life. It received the grand prize among special drama series at the 45th Houston International Film Festival, which was held in April. Helpless is based on the popular Japanese writer Miyabe Miyuki’s novel. It was also made into a movie in Korea.

For mini-series, a total of eight series, including Boardwalk Empire from the U.S. and Great Expectations and Sherlock 2 from the U.K, have been nominated.

For medium-length series, also a total of eight series have been nominated. The list of the nominated series is attracting a lot of attention because many Korean drama series, such as Deep-rooted Tree, The Moon Embracing the Sun, and The Princess’ Man, are on the list.

Along with the nominated drama series, nominees for Best Director, Best Writer, and Best Actor and Actress were also unveiled.

Steve Buscemi, who has appeared in various genres, ranging from the independent film Coffee and Cigarettes to the romantic film Paris, je t’aime, has been nominated for Best Actor in a Miniseries for Boardwalk Empire and Idris Elba, who made a strong impression on people through the movies Thor: God of Thunder and Ghost Rider, has been nominated for her role in Luther 2.

Gillian Anderson, who is popular in Korea as Scully from the X-files series, has been nominated for Best Actress for her role in Great Expectations, and Shin Ha Gyun from Brain and Ha Ji Won from The King 2 Hearts are also among the nominees for Best Actor and Actress.

There are also several great directors and writers nominated for Best Director and Best Writer. For the Best Director of a Miniseries, Brian Kirk has been nominated for Great Expectations. David Straiton has been nominated as Best Director of a Medium-Length Series for directing the thriller series The Firm. Morishita Yoshiko, a Japanese writer who wrote White Night and Crying Out Love, In the Center of the World, is a nominee for Best Writer for his script for Jin-Final.

Under the direction of Pyo Jae Soon, a chair-professor from Hallyu Culture and Industry Graduate School of Bae Je University, a panel of six judges from domestic and overseas broadcasting will select the winners.

The judges are Jang Mi Hee, a professor from the Theater Department of Myung Ji Community College; Yang Wenjun, one of the five most famous drama directors in China; Yoshiki Nishimura, an executive producer for the Drama Series Department of NHK; Cynthia Fenneman, a CEO of American Public Television; Norbert Sauer, president of UFA Film & Productions in Germany; and Trudi Tierney, the head of the TV Series Department of the Moby Media Group of Australia.

• Source: Starnews