EMMA awards to bring international contingent to Toronto for jury process

Toronto’s new media community will have an opportunity to bolster its international profile this fall when the international Electronic Multimedia Awards (EMMA) winners are chosen in that city. The event, scheduled for mid-October, marks the first time a North American city will host the EMMA jury. Besides selecting award winners, EMMA organizers say the event will give the approximately 45-member international jury a chance to meet Toronto’s new media entrepreneurs over the course of their five-day stay. The annual awards, which have always been held in Europe, are organized by the EMMA Foundation, a not-for-profit organization that combines running the awards with a related series of professional development programs. Dozens of awards are presented each year to multimedia projects across a spectrum of categories ranging from ITV, online learning initiatives, corporate web properties, and marketing. This year, the foundation will be working with Interactive Media Arts & Technologies (IMAT) and the Liberty Village New Media Centre. SMART Toronto could also be involved, pending the replacement of Mitzie Hunter after her recent departure from the organization (CNM, Dec. 13/01). Hunter’s resignation has apparently thrown a wrench in SMART Toronto’s participation. As well, organizers have solicited the help of a group of prominent southern Ontario post secondary institutions with new media programs, including Sheridan College, Ryerson Polytechnic University, and Humber College – though details have yet to be finalized. The Toronto groups will be responsible for organizing a series of networking events as well as a full-day field trip for the jury members. New media veteran Brian Katz, formerly of Telefilm Canada and Infopreneur Inc., is a Foundation director and lead organizer (CNM, May 18/00). This year’s event will be the 11th annual process. Last year’s EMMAs were held in Hamburg, with a judging panel including representatives from Austria, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK, and the U.S. This year’s jury has yet to be announced, but the members will be drawn from a standing pool of approximately 60 candidates chosen by the Foundation and made up of past jurors and about a dozen new people nominated by jury members. EMMA Foundation director Hal Josephson tells Canadian NEW MEDIA the judging process is what sets the EMMA awards apart from other industry honours. "One of the things that is unique about the EMMA process, which is not true with many of the other awards programs, is there is an enormous amount of time, energy, effort and actual dollars spent in reviewing the projects," he says. "To bring 40 people to one location and ask them to review 18 projects a day – there are 10-hour days – is a pretty extensive process…The face-to-face process is time-consuming, expensive, and hard to logistically organize, but I think it pays off in a lot of ways." Toronto was chosen as host of the EMMAs over several other cities, including Calgary. Josephson says there were discussions with Delvinia Inc., organizers of the Canadian New Media Awards, about a merged event since the EMMAs recognize companies while the CNMAs reward individual contributions. The timing, however, would not have worked out since the CNMAs are held in June, only a month or so after a call for entries will be made for EMMA nominations. That hurdle may not be a consideration in future, however. Josephson says the EMMAs have traditionally been timed to announce winners in mid-November, as they will be this year, to coincide with the release dates on CD-ROM projects. Josephson doesn’t rule out the possibility of working with other Canadian festivals, including the CNMAs and the Baddeck International New Media Festival, in future.

EMMA awards to bring international contingent to Toronto for jury process

News | 01/23/2002 5:00 am EST

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