[SINGAPORE, 30 SEPT 2025] In what will be the world’s largest spotlight on Asia Pacific content and performances, the Asian Academy Creative Awards today revealed the National Winners to contend across 40 categories in Singapore this December.
Asian Academy Creative Awards Chairperson, President of Network 10, Head of Streaming, and Regional Lead at Paramount Australia and New Zealand, Beverley McGarvey, announced an all-time record number of entries for this year’s prestigious competition.
Speaking at the opening of the AACA National Winners Announcement 2025, Ms. McGarvey noted “Our region is sending the world a strong message this year, via the Asian Academy Creative Awards, with a record number of entries, a record number of judges for the National Round, up 30% on last year, and a record number of companies entering, 176 in all”.
Ms. McGarvey highlighted the “331 National Winners across 16 nations and territories making this the biggest showcase of Asia-Pacific content in the world” then added “For buyers, distributors, casting and talent agents, co-producers, this is a truly one-stop curation of the best our region has to offer”.
Two-time Oscar winner Cate Blanchett will represent Australia courtesy of her Emmy nominated role in “Disclaimer” as AppleTV made an impressive debut at AACA. Thirteen nations and territories will battle it out for Best Actress In A Leading Role with 2022 winner Jodi Sta. Maria (Philippines) back in contention for a rare second golden “Goddess”.
“Pachinko” actresses Minha Kim and Youn Yuh-jung will represent Korea while director Arvin Chen will represent the Apple TV series under the Taiwanese banner.
“Saltburn” and Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein” starrer Jacob Elordi is another hot Hollywood actor featuring at AACA thanks to his lead role in “The Narrow Road to the Deep North”. The Australian actor will face stiff competition including multi award winning Chinese Mainland actor Li Xian and Korean superstar Park Bo-gum. A-Listers Li Xian and Bai Lu will lead the charge for Chinese Mainland.
The coveted Best Drama Series is a 13-way battle including “The Narrow Road to the Deep North”, iQIYI’s “Strange Tales of Tang Dynasty : To The West”, Prime Video’s Indian mystery thriller “Suzhal – The Vortex S2” and Korea’s much fancied “When Life Gives You Tangerines”.
Singapore’s acclaimed “Emerald Hill – The Little Nyonya Story” also contends for Best Drama Series, Best Actress (Jesseca Liu) and Best Supporting Actress (9-year-old Ivory Chia).
Netflix dominated the scripted categories across India and Thailand, with “Black Warrant” collecting 6 National Wins, despite missing out on Best Drama. Thailand is the reigning champion in the Best Drama category, and the Netflix series “Mad Unicorn” promises to be a strong contender with 5 nods from the Members of Jury.
Australia’s “How To Make Gravy” cooked up 3 National wins including Best Feature film but will face stiff competition from Chinese Mainland, India, Indonesia, defending titleholder Japan, Malaysia, Philippines and Taiwan.
India’s “Traitors” heads into December’s Gala Final ceremony boasting 4 National wins and will hope to emulate the format’s recent Emmy success.
The Asian Academy Creative Awards will be staged by the Asian Academy of Creative Arts at Singapore’s Capitol Theatre on December 4th.
The Asian Academy’s annual winners conference NWC25 will be staged over 2 days (Dec 3-4).
The theme for this year’s Red Carpet is “Culture Glamour – One Red Carpet A World of Colour”.
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Asian Academy of Creative Arts (AACA) is the organiser of the Asia Pac’s most prestigious awards for creative excellence, Asian Academy Creative Awards (AAA). AACA was established to honour creative excellence and serve as a peer judged pinnacle of achievement in content creation, performance and media production. Open to countries throughout the Asia Pacific region, the AAA honours excellence across television, film, digital, streaming and emerging technologies. Through its Academy Campus it also strives to develop and encourage the next generation of industry professionals. The AAA and Academy Campus is owned and organised by Asian Academy of Creative Arts, a not for profit organisation. For more details on the AACA, please visit www.asianacademycreativeawards.com
