CGTN's documentary earns ABU Producers' Choice Award

World
Europe

00:58

"The Gift of Life," a 60-min documentary produced by China Global Television Network (CGTN), won the Producers' Choice Award at the 2019 Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union's TV documentary screening and exchange meeting in Kuala Lumpur on March 7.

"The Gift of Life" is a 60-min documentary on China's organ transplant reform while the country has been endeavoring to divert from its decades-long reliance on organs taken from executed prisoners.

It approaches the complexity of the issue through human-interest stories. It records how families of organ donors struggle to make their final decisions, how patients suffering terminal diseases wait anxiously for a matched organ that has no due date to be found, and how donation coordinators and transplant surgeons collectively run against time to enable life relays.

(L-R) Koichi Okumura, director of ABU's department of programming, Wang Fan, a director at CGTN English and Liu Changying, executive producer at CGTN English, pose with the Producers' Choice Award trophy. /Photo courtesy of Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union's TV documentary screening and exchange meeting

The documentary presents the new look and the challenges of China's organ transplant industry and caters to an international audience.

After being screened, "The Gift of Life" was well received by the participating audience and triggered a strong interest in the reform taking place in China's organ transplants.

Delegations from ten TV stations in the Asia-Pacific region brought their own carefully-selected productions to run for the award, including leading TV stations such as Japan's NHK, South Korea's KBS, Hong Kong's RTHK and Singapore's Channel NewsAsia.

Participants' group photo at the meeting. /Photo courtesy of Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union's TV documentary screening and exchange meeting

Eventually, The Gift of Life, receiving seven votes from all participating channels, was picked as the best TV documentary.

The Gift of Life had its debut on CGTN-English on July 14, 2018. This is the first time that CGTN has received such an honor.

To watch the full documentary, click The Gift of Life.