Heartland, Nature of Things win international TV awards

CBC’s Heartland and The Nature of Things were among the winners of Rockies Awards, given out annually to the best television programming from around the world.

The awards were presented Sunday evening at the Banff World Media Festival in Banff, Alta.

Heartland, the drama about a family running a horse ranch in the Alberta foothills, won the award for best youth fiction program for an episode titled "Great Expectations" that aired last December in the sixth season.

The Nature of Things took the prize for environmental and wildlife programs for an episode titled "Andean Adventure" in which host David Suzuki explored the Ecuadoran experiment with not drilling for oil and Bolivia’s plan to build on the discovery of lithium in the country.

Another documentary, Age of Anxiety, which aired on CBC’s Doc Zone won the Rockies Award for social and humanitarian documentaries. Produced by Ric Esther Bienstock and Simcha Jacobovici, it explores whether anxiety  is a psychiatric condition requiring medication or a valid response to living in a fraught world.

The top continuing series was The Big C, the U.S.-made Showtime drama starring Laura Linney as a woman living with cancer. The best comedy was Belgian program What If?

Hatfields & McCoys, an Emmy-winning saga about the famous family feud that went on for 30 years, won the award for best mini-series.  The U.S.-produced 2012 CMT Music Awards was named best music and variety show.

Other Canadian winners:

• Best animation program for children: L'automne de Pougne (Poppety in the Fall), Radio-Canada.
• Best branded entertainment: Recipe to Riches, a program from Temple Street Productions and Food Network Canada that is moving to CBC this fall.
• Best non-fiction webseries: Beyond Wanderlust - The New Nomads, produced by Blue Ant Media and Travel + Escape.

The Banff World Media Festival, an industry conference focusing on TV and web content,  continues until June 12 in Banff, Alta.