The Israeli series, Tehran, won an International Emmy for Best Drama, when the awards were announced in New York on Monday night.
Accepting the award, Dana Eden, one of the creators of the dramatic series about a young, female Israeli Mossad agent in Iran, said that working on the series had made her hopeful for peace between Israel and Iran, in a speech that drew applause. “I want to say that Tehran is not only an espionage series. It’s all about understanding the human behind your enemy and we’re doing it every day on our set. We’re now filming our second season and we work with Iranian actors from all over the world, Iranian refugees that just fled the current regime in Iran and we work in collaboration, through love, and actually we found out that we have a lot in common. So I think it gives a hope for the future and I hope that we can walk together, the Iranians and the Israelis, in Jerusalem and in Tehran, as friends and not as enemies,” Eden said.
Culture and Sport Minister Chili Tropper congratulated the cast and crew in a statement, saying: “The excellent series, Tehran, brings great honor to Israel. The series’ creators, production and directing teams, and of course the wonderful actors and actresses have proven that Israeli art is at the highest levels, full of creativity and talent.”
The International Emmy for Drama Series goes to “Tehran” produced by Donna and Shula Productions / Paper Plane Productions! #Israel #iemmyWIN pic.twitter.com/0Haiwe6T9N
— International Emmy Awards (@iemmys) November 23, 2021
The Israeli actor, Roy Nik, was nominated for an International Best Actor Emmy, for his performance in the series, Normal, a series loosely based on the troubled relationship of Assi Dayan and his son, but David Tennant was the winner in this category for his portrayal of a serial killer in Des.
Tehran stars Niv Sultan as Tamar Rabinyan, a young Israeli agent of Iranian descent, who goes undercover in Iran to dismantle the nuclear program. The supporting cast in the first season included Menashe Noy, Liraz Charhi, Navid Negahban and Shaun Toub. Glenn Close is joining the cast for the second season.
The first season was broadcast in Israel on KAN 11 and around the world on Apple TV+. The series was written by Moshe Zonder, who wrote the first season of Fauda, and Omri Shenhar, who wrote the series Magpie. It was directed by Daniel Syrkin, who worked on such similarly themed dramatic series as Mossad 101 and The Gordin Cell. Tehran was created by Zonder, along with Maor Cohen and Eden, and its producers include Shula Spiegel. KAN 11 produced the series with the Canadian company Cineflix Rights, with the German and Belgian Paperplane Productions, as well as Dana Eden and Shula Spiegel Productions.
In January, AppleTV+ announced that Tehran was being renewed for a second season.
In 2018, Channel 13 show Nevsu, which follows an interracial family living in Israel, won an International Emmy award for best comedy.