Kiwi director Jane Campion will lead her Top of the Lake cast, crew and producing team along the red carpet and into Los Angeles' Nokia Theatre for the 65th Primetime Emmy Awards later today.
Top of the Lake was nominated for eight awards and its biggest opposition is Steven Soderbergh's Liberace biopic, Behind the Candelabra, starring Michael Douglas as the pianist showman and Matt Damon as his secret lover Scott Thorson.
They are going head-to-head in directing, supporting actor, writing and outstanding mini-series/TV movie categories.
Other series nominated for best mini-series/TV movie are American Horror Story: Asylum, The Bible, Phil Spector and Political Animals.
Top of the Lake has already beaten Behind the Candelabra to one Emmy for best cinematography, while the Liberace film has taken out best casting and best single camera picture editing.
This competition holds plenty of intrigue in a year where Game of Thrones takes on Breaking Bad, Downton Abbey, Homeland, House of Cards and Mad Men for outstanding drama series.
A poll of America's top TV critics overwhelmingly favoured Campion's Top of the Lake.
"How is this even considered close? Top of the Lake," USA Today's Robert Bianco responded.
"As flashy and well-performed as Candelabra may have been, it was essentially an emotional and factual cheat that distorted the lives of Liberace and, more crucially, Scott Thorson."
Top of the Lake and Behind the Candelabra share controversial histories.
When US actress Elisabeth Moss, best known for her Mad Men role, was cast as the lead in Top of the Lake, playing an Australian detective who returns to her small home town in New Zealand, it caused a furore in Australia, with the ABC pulling its $A600,000 in funding.
Top of the Lake, however, went ahead with help from Screen Australia and Screen NSW and support from the New Zealand Ministry of Culture and Heritage's Screen Production Incentive Fund, administered by the New Zealand Film Commission.
While the two hour-long Behind the Candelabra played in theatres in Australia and Europe, including premiering at the Cannes Film Festival and competing for a Palme d'Or, it was deemed "too gay" by Hollywood to do the same in US, according to Soderbergh and screenwriter Richard LaGravenese.
Instead of a cinematic release in the US, the movie aired on premium cable TV channel HBO, making it eligible for the Emmys.
The premiere gave HBO its highest ratings for a TV movie since 2004.
