Gold and bronze for DW television productions at the New York Festivals

"The Strange World of max x.," which is part of DW’s European culture magazine Euromaxx, received the Gold World Medal at the World's Best TV & Films competition of the New York Festivals, an annual awards series that honors achievements in a range of media. The quirky protagonist max x., played by British filmmaker David Packer, is a hapless hero, wrestling with the pitfalls and challenges of technology and modern life in his daily struggle for survival.

Last November, the series, co-developed by Packer and DW journalists Rolf Rische, Mischa Heuer and Axel Primavesi, already won an Award of Excellence and an Award of Merit in the category Comedy Series at the Accolade Competition in California. The competition's president Thomas Baker praised the show for its unique, clever and creative approach.Episodes of the Euromaxx comedy are featured at 13 international film and comedy festivals, including the Festival International du Court Métrage à Clermont-Ferrand in France, the San Francisco Independent Film Festival and the Wet Your Pants Comedy Film Festival in the USA, as well as a children's film festival in Réunion.

Difficult Past - A School and its Dark Nazi History," a TV segment in DW’s People and Politics series, was awarded the Bronze World Medal at the New York Festivals. An effort to understand and work through the trauma of the Holocaust is at the heart of the television production by DW journalist Alexander Feist. It traces the fate of Jewish students from the Friedrich Eugens Gymnasium, a German secondary school, during the Holocaust. Heinz Stern, a former student now residing in Israel, recounts his experiences nearly eight decades later.