The NEM Awards 2025—an initiative designed to elevate original scripted work from Central and Eastern Europe and strengthen co-productions between CEE territories and high-capacity production markets—announced its winners on December 9 during the closing night of NEM Zagreb 2025.

This year’s edition once again highlighted the region’s creative potential, awarding both early-stage projects and completed series that have made an impact across the CEE audiovisual landscape.

The category Best Pre-Development TV Series in Europe powered by HAVC showcased emerging ideas with strong international potential. Intended to give writers and creators a platform to pitch early-stage concepts to industry professionals, the award aims to connect imagination with opportunity and help transform promising ideas into greenlit productions.

The three finalists reflected the diversity and creativity of Europe’s developing television slate: Gray Divorce by Inja Korać and Lea Stanković, In Nomine Patris by Anastasia Pashkevich, and The Boy Who Could Listen to the Soil by Vasilis Chrysanthopoulos and Neritan Zinxhiria.

The grand prize went to Gray Divorce, a character-driven dramedy about an older couple—owners of a real estate company—who are pushed into retirement by their children, only to discover they share little in common once the work that defined their lives is gone. The Boy Who Could Listen to the Soil”took second place, while “In Nomine Patris” received the bronze. The creators of Gray Divorce expressed that the recognition marks a “great start” for the project as it moves forward in development.

In the Best Finished TV Series in the CEE category, the jury—composed entirely of industry professionals from outside the region—evaluated completed productions that have distinguished themselves through exceptional storytelling and craftsmanship. Eleven series were shortlisted as finalists, representing the breadth of recent CEE output. The top honor went to Disney+’s first CEE original, the Polish crime series The Breslau Murders, produced by ATM Grupa. Another Polish production, TVN WBD’s A Decent Man, earned second place, while ZDF Studios and Zolba Production’s Detective Von Fock secured the bronze.

Accepting the award, Robert Wieczorek, one of the creative producers of The Breslau Murders, said he was delighted by the recognition and emphasized that it validated the team’s hard work on a series designed to go through stories that touch people. He added that as Disney+’s inaugural Polish production, the pressure had been significant: “Expectations were high because Disney had to compete with Netflix, which is very big in Poland. You have to make a great show to make it easier for other producers to make great shows—because if you fail, they usually don’t take this subject anymore.”

A Special Mention was also awarded to HRT’s Sram—the Croatian adaptation of the hit Norwegian youth series Skam—produced by CGM Films, recognizing its resonance with local audiences and its standout execution within the adaptation space.