Emmy nod for wildlife film

An Irish documentary has beaten huge competition to be nominated for two Emmy Awards.

Up against the BBC and Discovery, the documentary, Broken Tail, is in the running for Outstanding Nature Programming and Cinematography.

The documentary follows Irish wildlife cameraman Colin Stafford Johnson on the trail of a tiger missing from a reserve in India.

Mr Stafford Johnson, who filmed the tiger cub growing up, also documented the plight of tigers in the wild.

Broken Tail will face competition from My Life as a Turkey and Polar Bear Spy on Ice in the Outstanding Nature Programming category.

In the Cinematography category, it is nominated alongside Human Planet, Madagascar, My Life as a Turkey, Bears of the Last Frontier and Armadillo.

The winners will be announced on Oct 1 in the Time Warner Center in New York.

The documentary, which took almost 600 days to film, has already been broadcast on prime time viewing slots in Ireland, the UK, America, and across Europe.

It has proven to be a crowd pleaser, having already won Best of Festival recently at the world’s top two wildlife film festivals in America.

Director John Murray said he is thrilled with the Emmy nods.

“We are delighted that Broken Tail has been honoured in this way by the Emmys with such truly formidable opposition as the very best output of the BBC and Discovery.”

“It is an Irish film about an Indian subject that has hit a chord with prime time audiences worldwide.”

The documentary was funded by Irish sponsors RTÉ and The Irish Film Board and internationally from CBC in Canada, ZDF and SWR in Germany, BBC in the UK and PBS in the US.

At present, the documentary has a 7.5 out of 10 rating on a website internet movie database.