The 41st Annual Telly Awards Honors Winners Sony Music, Partizan, HBO Latin America, ESPN Films, BBC, iHeart Media, Narratively Creative, Warner Bros., and Disney

Cristina Blanaru Business, Festivals & Awards, Marketing, Media

The Telly Awards, the world’s largest honor for video and television content across all screens, has announced this year’s winners, including Jeff Buckley’s “Sky Blue Skin” music video from Sony Music Entertainment, Partizan’s Hewlett Packard “Print the Holidays” Christmas commercial (helmed by French director Michel Gondry), and the exciting psychological deepdive “Do We Have Free Will?” from BBC Reels, as well as a short branded documentary from Square. Under this year’s “Telly Awards Winners Tell Great Stories” theme, standouts encompass directors, editors, animators, producers, technologists, and more across a wide range of industries, company sizes, and regions including Viacom Velocity, Autodesk, HBO Latin America, Adult Swim, Condé Nast, BBC, CNN, Fast Company, Bone+Gold, and Beauregard Media, along with international work from the likes of Culture Trip and Christie’s Auction House (United Kingdom), Taxi (Australia), Al Jazeera (Qatar), and FJ Amsterdam (The Netherlands).

Founded in 1979, the Telly Awards honors video and television made for all screens and is judged by the Telly Award Judging Council, a group of leading video and television experts from some of the most prestigious companies in entertainment, publishing, advertising, and emerging technology.

View all of the winners of The 41st Telly Awards at www.tellyawards.com/winners.

Additionally, the Telly Awards is once again spotlighting years of achievement in multi-platform narratives by naming CBS Interactive as the ‘Telly Company of the Year.’ A leader in pioneering insightful and inspiring video content online and off, properties such as 60 Minutes Overtime on CBS News and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert along with branded content for the likes of Google, Oculus Quest, and Toyota perfectly exemplify this year’s theme celebrating the inspiring power of storytelling.

“Our work exists to highlight and honor exemplary storytelling across all screens,” explains Telly Awards Managing Director Sabrina Dridje. “And now is a more important time than ever to give a platform to those creators bringing us global stories. Last season, we were blown away by work that highlighted social injustice and celebrated diverse work cultures, including pieces that showed us the excellent work being done by humanitarian groups around the world and international communities striving for more equal playing fields for the marginalized. As our season came to a close during the pandemic, however, we were equally impressed by the work that was being produced in this difficult climate to continue to highlight stories that otherwise would not find an audience.”

The diverse array of this year’s winners speaks to the continued growth in creative approaches to the rising digital video production, storytelling, and distribution landscape. To continue broadening its reach across social and digital video artists and spaces, the Telly Awards has expanded its industry partnerships to include VidCon and Social Media Week. This year’s content was judged by a panel of the most diverse and elite group of television and video industry leaders in the awards’ history, including HP Global Head of Virtual Reality Joanna Popper, Vice President of Production at Complex Networks David Weinstein, and Edelman Creative Newsroom Director Annie Granatstein.

Building on the categories of years past, the 41st Telly Awards has added a suite of new ‘Immersive & Mixed Reality’ categories. Winners in this suite include “Star Wars: 5G Sith Jet Trooper” from immersive media company RYOT and “Bonfire” an interactive film voiced by comedian Ali Wong, from VR animation company Baobab Studios. Additionally, in order to better celebrate the increase in social video and documentary work that addresses global issues, two new categories — ‘Social Impact’ and ‘Diversity & Inclusion’ — were also added.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, many pieces dealing with the fallout of the crisis were submitted, spanning fully animated explainer videos, stunning drone footage of empty cities, and a heartfelt and inspiring choreographed Zoom performance from The Juilliard School. The latter features over 100+ of the school’s alumni, including legendary musician Yo-Yo Ma, performing “Bolero” utilizing their unique talents to showcase the incredible power of art to draw people together, even in a time of unprecedented separation.

To further celebrate storytelling across all screens, The Telly Awards also ran the annual ‘Film & Video Night’ screening series throughout the 41st season — curated from past winners, judges, and partners. Programming featured standout work from the likes of CNN’s Great Big Story, droga5, Square, WeTransfer, RadicalMedia, and independent artist and animator Andrew Myers with hugely successful screenings in New York, Toronto, London, and Amsterdam. As the COVID-19 pandemic began to unfold, the Tellys pivoted to share this work online in the form of a Facebook Watch Party, safely continuing to bring engaging and relevant content to the community it serves. All of this work can still be enjoyed on the Telly Awards Facebook page.

41st Annual Telly highlights from this year’s winners include: 

Immersersive & Mixed Reality

  • RYOT won for “Star Wars: 5G Sith Jet Trooper” in Use of Interactivity
  • Baobab Studios won for “Bonfire” in Animation
  • Al Jazeera Media Network, Digital Division won for “Still Here” in Social Impact
  • Dell Technologies won for Alienware “Unleash The Power” VR Experience in Use of Interactivity

Branded Content

  • Narratively Creative won for “The Story of Your Name” in Branded Content: Fully Animated Piece
  • Partizan won for Hewlett Packard’s “Print the Holidays” in Branded Content: Art Direction
  • SoulPancake won for “Class of 2019” in Series: Non-Scripted
  • Apartment Therapy won for “The Journey Home” in Campaign: Business-to-Consumer

Television Series/Shows/Segments

  • American Documentary won for “America Reframed: Intelligent Lives” in Diversity & Inclusion
  • Smithsonian Channel won for “America in Color: Coming to America” in Use of Archival Footage
  • PBS won for “For Sama – Featurette” in Documentary
  • NASA/Hubble won for “NASA’s Incredible Discovery Machine: The Story of the Hubble Space Telescope” in Use of Archival Footage

Non-Broadcast 

  • Sony Music Entertainment won for Jeff Buckley’s “Sky Blue Skin” music video in Non-Broadcast: Art Direction
  • Culture Trip won for “Send It Worldwide – Culture Trip x GoPro” in Cinematography
  • Accenture won for “Health Tech Innovation ” in Direct Marketing
  • AJ + won for “Locked Up For Being Poor” in Documentary: Series

Online Series/Shows/Segments 

  • BBC Reels won for “Do We Have Free Will?” in Online: Documentary Series
  • Sesame Workshop won for “I Don’t Want to Live on the Moon” in Children
  • Great Big Story won for “Shine” in Webseries: Documentary
  • Condé Nast Entertainment won for “RuPaul Answers Increasingly Personal Questions | Slow Zoom | Vanity Fair” in Directing

Social Video

  • Beauregard Media won for ”SHEROES” in Social Video: Sports & Leisure
  • The Juilliard School won for “Bolero Julliard” in Social Video: Arts & Entertainment
  • Paul Getty Museum won for “Getty Unshuttered Artists” in Public Service & Activism
  • Malala Fund won for “Malala Fund’s ‘Roll Call’” in Not-For-Profit

The Telly Awards is the premier award honoring video and television across all screens. Established in 1979, The Telly Awards receives over 12,000 entries from all 50 states and 5 continents. Entrants are judged by The Telly Awards Judging Council—an industry body of over 200 leading experts including advertising agencies, production companies, and major television networks, reflective of the multi-screen industry The Telly Awards celebrates. Partners of The Telly Awards include NAB, Stash Magazine, and Digiday.