A BBC2 drama chronicling the last 18 months in the life of newspaper tycoon Robert Maxwell has been nominated for an International Emmy award.
Actor David Suchet was shortlisted last night in the performance category for his role as the larger-than-life Mirror Group owner, who died in mysterious circumstances after apparently falling from his yacht in Tenerife in November 1991.
Maxwell, which was broadcast by the BBC in May last year, explored the Daily Mirror proprietor’s obsessive rivalry with Rupert Murdoch and the worsening conditions that prompted him to steal hundreds of millions of pounds from the Mirror Group pension fund.
Also shortlisted for an International Emmy is a documentary by Touching The Void author Joe Simpson – the mountain climber who survived a 100ft fall into a crevasse in the Peruvian Andes.
The Beckoning Silence, produced by TV indie Darlow Smithson and broadcast last October on Channel 4, reconstructed an expedition in which four climbers died scaling the north face of the Eiger in the Swiss Alps in 1936.
Simpson examined the events leading to the death of German mountaineer Toni Kurz – the last-surviving of the four mountaineers, who died hanging on to the end of a rope, 50 feet above a rescue party.
This year’s International Emmys shortlist was unveiled at the Mipcom international TV festival in Cannes and was drawn up by judges from 25 global broadcasting groups including HBO, Al Jazeera and the European Television Guild.
The winners will be announced at a black-tie ceremony in New York on 24 November.
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