First Day, written, directed and co-produced by AFTRS alum Julie Kalceff has won the International Emmy Kids Award for Best Live Action Series. This adds to the series’ extensive list of honours from around the world, which include wins at the Rose d’Or Awards, GLAAD Media Awards, Banff World Media Rockie Awards, ATOM Awards and Kidscreen Awards, in addition to receiving two AACTA nominations.
The groundbreaking series, which follows a 12-year-old transgender student navigating high school, beat entries from The Philippines, Netherlands, and Argentina to triumph at the ceremony on 12 October. This is the second year running that the Kids Live Action category has celebrated the work of AFTRS alumni, being claimed last year by Hardball, produced by Jo Weatherstone (Master of Arts (Film & Television) Producing, 2001) and directed by Kacie Anning (Graduate Diploma in Directing (Fiction & Non-Fiction), 2011).
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Created by Kalceff (Graduate Diploma in Documentary, 2013; Graduate Diploma in Screenwriting, 2012), First Day tells the story of Hannah Bradford (played by Evie Macdonald) a transgender girl dealing with the challenges of starting a new school and finding the courage to live as her most authentic self. The series was produced for the ABC by Epic Films in association with Kojo Entertainment.
Since premiering in March 2020, the series has been picked up around the world by distributors including Hulu in the United States, CBBC in the United Kingdom and in other countries such as France, Japan, Canada, Brazil, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Taiwan, Israel, Ireland, South Africa and New Zealand.
Also working on the series were AFTRS alumni, second assistant director James Dubay (Advanced Diploma in Screenwriting: Feature Film, 2018), music supervisor Alies Sluiter (Master of Arts: Film, Television and Digital Media Screen Composition, 2005), script supervisor Amanda Higgs (AFTRS Certificate, 1990) and second camera focus-puller James Ward-Miller (Master of Arts Screen, 2020; Graduate Certificate Screen: Cinematography, 2018).
Season one of First Day is now streaming on ABC iview. First Day’s second season completed production in Adelaide in August, with investment from Hulu, and is slated to premiere on ABC ME in 2022.
See the full list of winners at the 2021 International Emmy Kids Awards here.
