There are 16 main categories for programs and another 29 nominations for individuals, which allows the Academy to share the wealth. The Academy has added several new categories this year. For example, it has made Best Sitcom and Best Comedy Drama into separate categories.
The largest category is Best Drama, with 11 nominees. These include series that are familiar to audiences around the world, such as Shtisel, Tehran, Losing Alice and Valley of Tears, which have been shown abroad on Netflix, Apple TV and HBO Max.
In the Best Sitcom category, the show about an Ethiopian man married to an Ashkenazi woman, Nevsu, which is being remade in the US, faces off against The Management, about adult children returning to live in the country with their family, which stars Shlomo Bar-Aba and Nelly Tagar; Ron, about a lovable loser, starring Ron Feldman; Main Checkout Counter, about a supermarket, with Keren Mor; and the beloved multi-season show, Sabri Maranan, about a family going to Friday night dinners, starring Tuvia Tzafir and Dvir Benedek.
The Comedy-Drama Series category includes new shows such as The Big, Special Thing, a series about a woman who discovers she is suffering from a serious illness, starring Orna Pitussi and Einat Weitzman, and Rehearsals, about a theatrical couple who have broken up but are forced to work together, with Noa Koler and Erez Drigues, as well as It’s Like That, about a couple who drive each other crazy with Dana Modan and Assi Cohen.
The Best Documentary series category includes shows on such varied subjects as the Lebanon Wars, singer Ofra Haza and the politics of food.
There are also a confusing array of categories for the best non-fiction and news-based programs, including awards for shows on current affairs, investigative journalism, fact-based journalism, docu-reality, reality, satire, sports, game shows, culture series and leisure programs.
It’s hard to understand the criteria for these categories. Ilana Dayan’s acclaimed, long-running investigative journalism show, Fact, is not nominated in the fact-based category but in the investigative category, but the idea is, apparently, to have as many nominees as possible this year.