Emmys 2016: 'Making a Murderer' and 'Cartel Land' earn multiple awards

What Happened, Miss Simone? also a winner; Keith David gets third trophy for Ken Burns collaboration

Awards season got underway in earnest this weekend with the presentation of the Creative Arts Emmy Awards in Los Angeles.

The Netflix 10-part true crime series Making a Murderer emerged as the biggest winner, earning four awards including Best Documentary Series. Co-directors and executive producers Moira Demos and Laura Ricciardi also won awards for directing and writing. Demos won for editing the series, giving her the Emmy hat trick. 

Making a Murderer tracks the controversial case of Steven Avery, a Wisconsin man wrongly convicted of rape and attempted murder in 1985. After being exonerated of that crime he was arrested in a separate murder case in 2005 and convicted, along with his teenage nephew, Brendan Dassey. 

The series raised serious questions about the prosecution of both cases, and just last month Dassey's conviction was overturned by a judge who ruled the youth's confession had been coerced by police.

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Matthew Heineman's documentary Cartel Land -- about the drug war on both sides of the US-Mexico border -- added to an already-impressive collection of awards.

​It won three Emmys over the weekend, including Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking. Heineman also won Outstanding Cinematography and the film took the prize for sound editing. 

"Cartel Land' director Matthew Heineman with Kathryn Bigelow, one of the executive producers of the film. Both earned Emmys over the weekend. Photo by Matt Carey/February 2016

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Cartel Land earned an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary earlier in the year, qualifying by virtue of a theatrical run before it appeared on television.

Liz Garbus' film What Happened, Miss Simone? followed a similarly trajectory -- earning an Oscar nomination for its portrayal of the late singer and Civil Rights activist Nina Simone. On Sunday the film -- which played on Netflix after its theatrical debut -- won the Emmy for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special.

Among the other notable Emmy winners was Jim: The James Foley Story. Along with Cartel Land, it was honored for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking. The film directed by Brian Oakes previously won the Audience Award for US Documentary at Sundance.

"Jim: The James Foley Story" about the journalist James Foley who was killed by ISIS radicals, won an Emmy for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking. Image courtesy HBO/Dogwoof

For the first time the Creative Arts Emmys were divided into two nights. On Saturday, actor Keith David won an Emmy for narrating the Ken Burns documentary Jackie Robinson.

It was the third Emmy of David's career, all coming for voiceover work on Ken Burns films; he previously won for narrating The War [2007] and Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson [2004].

David is currently on stage in LA in a production of the August Wilson play Ma Rainey's Black Bottom.

Actor, singer and voiceover artist Keith David. Photo from keithdavid.com