The UK won three International Emmy Awards, including one for Sean Bean as best actor, while producer-director J.J. Abrams received a special honour for his work on television series and films such as Lost, Star Trek and the upcoming Star Wars chapter.
The awards, which honour television produced outside the US, were more global in reach this year after having been dominated or even swept by the UK in recent years.
France and Brazil won two Emmys, while Australia, Germany and South Korea each won one.
Brazilian actress Fernanda Montenegro won best performance by an actress for her role in Sweet Mother, in which she plays an elderly woman determined to embrace life, while Bean won as actor for his role as a lonely literature teacher who trawls nightclubs as a transvestite in Accused.
“I’ve never actually really won anything before,” Bean quipped as he accepted his award.
Abrams, an Emmy-award winner for Lost who is producing and directing the upcoming Star Wars: Episode VII, was presented with the Founders Award by actor Zachary Quinto, who played Spock in Star Trek.
“It’s a privilege beyond words to work in television,” Abrams said as he paid tribute to friends, family and colleagues, notably his wife whom he thanked “for her support and brutal honesty”.
Nominees for the 41st annual awards, which were hosted by British comic John Oliver, spanned 19 countries.
I’ve never actually really won anything before- Sean Bean
The arts programming award was a tie between South Korea’s Hello? Orchestra, about a multicultural children’s orchestra, and the UK’s Freddie Mercury: The Great Pretender, about the late lead singer of the band Queen.
The award for best comedy went to the UK’s Moone Bay, about an 11-year-old boy with an adult imaginary friend, while France’s rural-set, zombie-themed The Returned won best drama series. France also took the documentary prize for 5 Broken Cameras, in which a Palestinian farmer examines upheaval in a West Bank village.
Germany’s A Day for a Miracle, about a young doctor’s valiant effort to save the life of a four-year-old girl presumed drowned, won the award for TV movie or miniseries, and Brazil’s Side by Side was named outstanding telenovela.
The award for non-scripted, or reality, series was won by Australia’s Go Back to Where You Came From, in which prominent Australians on opposing sides of the asylum issue travel to desperate and dangerous corners of the world.