RTÉ programmes nominated at awards festival

Two RTÉ series have been nominated in this year's prestigious international Television Festival in Banff, Canada, which starts on Sunday 9th June.
One of the productions in the highly acclaimed 'Beckett on Film' series was nominated in the Performance Programmes Category. 'Play', which was directed by Oscar-winning director Anthony Minghella ('The English Patient', 1996), featured the acting talents of Alan Rickman, Kristin Scott Thomas and Juliet Stephenson.
'Play' was one of the Nobel Prize-winning playwright's 19 stage plays, which were produced by Blue Angel Films and Tyrone Productions in association with RTÉ and Channel 4.
'Beckett on Film' has already been honoured with a South Bank Show Award, amongst other international accolades.
A three-part series, 'Fortress Europe', which tells the story of Europe's human traffic on a continental scale for the first time, was nominated in the Social and Political Documentary category. The series was made by a Swedish film company, Nordisk and was co-produced by RTÉ, SVT (Sweden), NRK (Norway) DR (Denmark) Arte-France and YLE (Finland).
'Fortress Europe' has previously won an award at the international programme festival, FIPA (Festival International de Programmes Audiovisuels) in Biarritz and First Prize at the North-South Festival in Geneva earlier this year.
The Irish programmes of Fortress Europe were edited and presented by Sean Whelan, RTÉ's Europe Correspondent.
RTÉ, www.rte.ie
(GMcG)