Mona Mina Leon has become the first female Belgian actress to be nominated for an International Emmy Award. She has been recognised for her performance in the Streamz series Holy sh!t. The 32-year-old from Flemish Brabant is one of four nominees in the Best Performance by an Actress category, for her portrayal of a teacher with Tourette’s syndrome.
Culture
Mona Mina Leon is first Belgian actress ever to be nominated for International Emmy
Published:
“I just really didn’t get it,” Leon said of her nomination. “For a moment, I thought it was one of those AI-generated posters, that it was a joke. To be honest, I still don’t quite get it. But of course I’m absolutely delighted and so grateful. It’s really mad.”
In the series, which was inspired by a British documentary and broadcast in 2025, Yasmine De Laet wants to become a maths and physics teacher but is hampered by her condition.
“I really put a lot of love and energy into it,” Leon says. “It was a huge responsibility to portray someone with Tourette’s, as I don’t have the syndrome myself.”
For a moment, I thought it was one of those AI-generated posters, that it was a joke
The other nominees in her category are Bárbara Mori for Lucca’s World, Park Ji-Hyun for You And Everything Else, and Sheridan Smith for I Fought the Law. The winners will be announced at a ceremony in New York on 23 November.
De klas van 2000 has also been nominated in the Short-Form Series category. The series, produced by De Mensen for the streaming platform VTM GO, tells the story of a father who comes out as gay and ends his relationship with the mother of his child. The series won three awards at the NYC Web Fest film festival last year.
Previous winners
Several Belgian productions have previously won awards at the International Emmy Awards. Restaurant Misverstand won in 2024, Hoe zal ik het zeggen in 2018 and Sorry voor alles in 2017, in the Non-Scripted Entertainment category.
Wat als in 2014 and Benidorm Bastards in 2011 took the prize in the Comedy Series category, and in 2021, the Ketnet series Tekens van leven won an International Emmy Kids Award.