Guidestones, the much-lauded Canadian conspiracy-theory Web series, has won an International Emmy.
The 50-part interactive series was recognized as the best digital fiction program by the International Academy for Television Arts & Sciences in Cannes, France, on Tuesday. The show has previously been nominated in five categories of the Web television awards presented at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and has won the Canadian Screen Award for best Web series as well as Canada's Digi and Rockie Awards.
Squarely aimed at the Internet's conspiracy-theory community, the series mixes fact and fiction as it follows two journalism students (played by Supinder Wraich and Dan Fox) who uncover the mystery surrounding the Georgia Guidestones. The Guidestones, an actual American monument, are granite slabs inscribed in modern and ancient languages that appeared anonymously in a farmer's field in northeastern Georgia in 1979. Doling out interactive clues and hidden messages for viewers in three-minute episodes, the series weaves a thriller around the stones as the students decode the texts that offer guidelines for a world order.
Written and directed by feature filmmaker Jay Ferguson, Guidestones was shot in Canada, the United States and India on a budget of $300,000 and also stars veteran Canadian actors David Fox, Rosemary Dunsmore, Hrant Alianak and Juan Chioran.
A second season, to be shot in France, the U.S., Britain and Ukraine, will begin production this summer.
Kate Taylor