The 2025 edition of the International Emmy Awards, held on Monday, November 24 in New York, left Spain with a mixture of joy, pride and also a touch of disappointment. Our country competed in three categories with four different productions and ended up winning two awards of enormous international weight: the award for best actor for Oriol Pla, for I, Addict (Disney+), and the best sports documentary award for #SeAcabó: Diario de las campeonas (Netflix). (Netflix), focused on the history of the women’s national team after the 2023 World Cup and Luis Rubiales’ non-consensual kiss with Jenni Hermoso.
Even so, Spain came up short in the best telenovela category, where Valle salvaje and Regreso a Las Sabinas could not beat Turkey’s Deha.
A documentary that became a milestone: the triumph of #SeAcabó.
The documentary #SeAcabó: Diario de las campeonas, produced by You First Originals, won against major international rivals such as Argentina ’78 (Disney+), Chasing the Sun 2 (South Africa) and Sven (UK). The piece reconstructs the historic triumph of the women’s national team in 2023 and the subsequent social earthquake generated by Rubiales’ unwanted kiss to Jenni Hermoso.
The producers, Javier Martínez and Luis Miguel Calvo, previously explained that “some 4,000 sports documentaries” are released every year, a fact that shows the challenge of standing out. In order to obtain the rights of the players, they competed with “around twenty production companies”.
In fact, they told EL PAÍS that during production: “We received pressures to limit our creative freedom, censorship in the context of the interviews, calls to reconsider the project…”. Even so, they remained firm in their objective: “Our purpose has been firm from the beginning: to give voice to the story of the players”. The international award confirms that they succeeded. Martínez and Joanna Pardos collected the award visibly moved.
Oriol Pla, Emmy for Best Actor: a historic award for I, Addict
The other great Spanish triumph came with Oriol Pla, who won the International Emmy for best actor for his performance in Yo, adicto, the adaptation of the autobiography of writer and director Javi Giner, who narrates his fall into the world of drugs and his subsequent recovery.
Pla competed against:
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Diljit Dosanjh(Amar Singh Chamkila, India, Netflix)
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David Mitchell(Ludwig, United Kingdom)
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Diego Vasquez(One Hundred Years of Solitude, Netflix).
His reaction said it all: when his name was heard, he stood up “jumping and hugging Giner”, excited and astonished. Pla had already been awarded by the Actors Union and the Feroz. The International Emmy consolidates a career that is aiming for the top.
The production had generated intense conversation in Spain. Giner said that, as he watched Pla play it, he experienced a profoundly revealing moment: “I’m having a regression. I’m seeing perfectly the moment when all this happened”. The actor himself calmed him down: “Javi, I’m here. We’re going to do it between the two of us”.
The night’s defeats for Spain and Latin America
Spain came close to a third award with Valle salvaje and Regreso a Las Sabinas in the telenovela category. Both were favorites, but the victory finally went to the Turkish production Deha.
The gala also left negative results for Latin America:
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Mexico did not win best actress: Carolina Miranda(Mujeres asesinas 2) lost to Anna Maxwell Martin(Until I Kill You, UK).
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Nor did it win in comedy(Y Llegaron de Noche) or entertainment(¿Quién es la Máscara?).
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Argentina did not receive an award in the short series(Todo se transforma) or in the sports documentary category.
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Chile lost the miniseries category with Vencer o Morir.
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Colombian actor Diego Vasquez was defeated in the category won by Oriol Pla.
In total, none of the Latin American nominations won a statuette.
