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P.O.V.’s Web Site Wins Five “W3” Awards for Creative Excellence

Nov 5 2006

P.O.V.'s Web site, www.pbs.org/pov has won five awards in the first W3 competition, presented by the International Academy of the Visual Arts. Receiving over 2,300 entries, the W3 Awards honor outstanding Web sites, Web marketing and Web advertising. Celebrating its 20th season on PBS in 2007, P.O.V. is public television's annual award-winning showcase for independent nonfiction films.

P.O.V.'s Web site, created by the series' award-winning Web department, P.O.V. Interactive, won two Gold Awards in the Television/Movie and Film categories, as well as a Gold Award in the Politics category for the site devoted to the acclaimed documentary Street Fight by Marshall Curry (www.pbs.org/pov/streetfight). P.O.V. also won two W3 Silver Awards: one for P.O.V.'s Borders | American ID in the Broadband category, and one for In the Realms of the Unreal by Academy Award winner Jessica Yu, in the Art category. American Documentary | P.O.V. has previously won a Webby Award, hailed as "the online Oscars" by Time Magazine, for P.O.V.'s Borders: Environment, www.pbs.org/pov/borders/2004.

"We are honored to receive these W3 awards, and especially pleased to be part of the inaugural competition," said Simon Kilmurry, American Documentary | P.O.V.'s executive director. "The P.O.V. Web site is an extension of success the series has had on television and in the community for close to 20 years," added Theresa Riley, P.O.V.'s director of interactive. "We continue to shape, test and evaluate innovative media models that spotlight artistic works of distinction and encourage dialogue and interactivity."

P.O.V.'s award-winning Web department produces the Web-only showcase for interactive storytelling, P.O.V.'s Borders, which has been cited by Yahoo! and USA Today, and won a Parents' Choice Silver Honor, a Batten Award and an Online News Association Award. It also produces a Web site for every P.O.V. presentation, extending the life of P.O.V. films through community-based and educational applications, focusing on involving viewers in activities, information and feedback on the issues. In addition, www.pbs.org/pov houses the unique Talking Back feature, filmmaker interviews, podcasts and viewer resources, along with information on the P.O.V. archives as well as myriad special sites for previous P.O.V. broadcasts.

The Academy Award-nominated documentary Street Fight, which aired on P.O.V. in 2005, looks at the contentious 2002 mayoral race in Newark, N.J. between four-term incumbent Sharpe James and newcomer Cory Booker. It won awards at the Tribeca and International Documentary Association (IDA) Film Festivals. P.O.V.'s companion Web site, www.pbs.org/pov/streetfight, offers exclusive streaming video clips from the film and a wealth of resources, including a Q&A with filmmaker Marshall Curry and ample opportunities for viewers to "talk back" and talk to each other about the film. Special features include an essay, exclusive to P.O.V., by Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page, who put the Newark campaign into context with national events and politicians including Senator Barak Obama; a history of Newark and its radical transformations; and a look at America's black mayors. Street Fight is a co-presentation with the Independent Television Service (ITVS).

At home and abroad, the question of what makes an American has become one of the key issues for the 21st century. P.O.V. and the Open Media Network (OMN) joined forces to put the "public" back in public media with the innovative site P.O.V.'s Borders | American ID, which looks at American identity from a global perspective and asks visitors what it means to be American. The interactive, multipart series allowed people to upload their videos and camera-phone images to www.pbs.org/pov/borders and www.omn.org to share their unique perspectives. Each episode of the series asked visitors to consider an aspect of their everyday lives in ways that challenge their preconceptions and expand our own "borders" of understanding.

In the Realms of the Unreal, which also aired on P.O.V. in 2005, profiles reclusive outsider artist Henry Darger, who produced a 15,000-page novel and hundreds of illustrations that continue to inspire artists around the world. Jessica Yu's film employs dreamlike animation, narration by Dakota Fanning and a haunting musical score. The film won awards at the Vancouver International Film Festival, International Festival of Films on Art, Newport Beach International Film Festival and Atlanta Film Festival. The companion Web site, www.pbs.org/pov/intherealms, offers an interactive image gallery of Darger paintings, with an interface allowing users to navigate through the larger scrolls and zoom into portions of the paintings, accompanied by audio commentary from American Folk Art Museum curator Brooke Anderson; an excerpt from Henry Darger: Art and Selected Writings with commentary by author Michael Bonesteel; and a click-through examination of Darger's creative and idiosyncratic collage techniques. In the Realms of the Unreal is a co-presentation with the Independent Television Service (ITVS).

The W3 Awards
The W3 Awards competition is sanctioned and judged by the International Academy of the Visual Arts, an invitation-only body consisting of professionals from acclaimed media, interactive, advertising, and marketing firms. IAVA members include executives from organizations such as Alloy, BRANDWEEK, Coach, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Estee Lauder, HBO, iNDELIBLE, Monster.com, MTV, Omnicom, Polo Ralph Lauren, Refinery, Southeby's Institute of Art, Victoria's Secret, Wired, Yahoo!, and many others. For more information about the Awards, visit www.w3award.com.

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