Wednesday 13 October 2010

Panda Awards go Green

At a glittering ceremony in Bristol, explorer Benedict Allen and the BBC’s Kate Silverton presented the Wildscreen Festival’s hotly contested Panda Awards to the world’s best wildlife and environmental filmmakers. This year, a powerful environmental film ‘Green’ took centre stage.

WWF Golden Panda Award winner Patrick Rouxel for ‘Green’

The highest accolade of all, the WWF Golden Panda Award, went to ‘Green’, a deeply moving French film following the lonely last days of an aging female orang-utan called Green as she witnesses the destruction of her rainforest home. The film reveals the devastating Impact of logging and land clearance for palm oil plantations.

Bristol talent was also recognised – the BBC Natural History Unit took the Jury’s Special Prize for the epic series ‘Life’, narrated by Sir David Attenborough, and also the Popular Broadcast Programme Award for ‘Lost Land of the Volcano’. The UWE Children’s Choice Award went to ‘Monkey Thieves’ by Bristol-based company Off The Fence, and ‘Wild Places of Essex’, an AGB Films Ltd production with the BBC Natural History Unit, won the Best Editing Award.

BBC Worldwide, Discovery Channel & NDR Naturfilm’s ‘The Lost Land of the Volcano’
scooped the Award for Popular Broadcast Programme. 

Harriet Nimmo, Chief Executive of Wildscreen, said: “We are hugely privileged to have the world’s greatest filmmakers here with us in Bristol. This year more than ever the Wildscreen Awards rewarded films that not only delight people but also engage them in the urgent environmental issues that we are all facing. Together, these passionate filmmakers are spreading vital messages about the future of life on Earth.”

Winners of the Wildscreen Award to Promote Filmmakers from Developing Countries,
Rita Banerji & Shilpi Sharma for The Wild Meat Trail,
with Wildscreen Chief Executive Harriet Nimmo

The awards ceremony was attended by more than 600 people from around the globe, many of whom were in Bristol for the internationally acclaimed Wildscreen Festival (10 to 15 October).

Winners of Wildscreen 2010 Panda Awards

Animal Behaviour Award
The Pack: Episode 5
Animal Planet International (USA)

Campaign Award
Save Our Sharks
Save Our Seas Foundation (United Kingdom)

UWE Children's Choice Award
Monkey Thieves: Searching for Sanctuary
Off the Fence (Netherlands & United Kingdom)

Panasonic Cinematography Award
The Forest: Realm of Shadows
A nautilusfilm GmbH (Germany) production for NDR Naturfilm/Studio Hamburg co-produced with ARTE, ORF in association with Parthenon Entertainment Camera - Jan Haft & Kay Ziesenhenne

Earth Sciences Award
How Earth Made Us: Deep Earth
BBC (United Kingdom)
Co-produced with BBC Factual & National Geographic Channels in association with ZDF

Best Editing Award
Wild Places of Essex
AGB Films Ltd (United Kingdom)
Co-produced with BBC Natural History Unit/BBC Worldwide
Editor - Nigel Buck

Natural History Museum Environment Award
Green
Tawak Pictures (France)

Parthenon Entertainment Award for Innovation
In the Womb: Extreme Animals
Pioneer Productions (United Kingdom)
Co-produced with Fox Television Studios & Channel 4 for National Geographic Channel

Best Music Award
The Crimson Wing, Mystery of the Flamingos
Disneynature (United Kingdom)
Co-produced with Natural Light Films and Kudos Pictures
Music - The Cinematic Orchestra

ARKive New Media Award
iSpot
Open University (United Kingdom)

BBC Newcomer Award
Hudson's Monarch
Filmmaker - Mat Thompson (United Kingdom)

Animal Planet International People & Animals Award
Explorer: Gorilla Murders
National Geographic Television (USA)

Popular Broadcast Programme
Lost Land of the Volcano: Programme 1
Co-produced with BBC Worldwide, Discovery Channel & NDR Naturfilm/Studio Hamburg (Germany) production

Presenter-led Award
Expedition Grizzly
Grizzly Creek Films (USA)
Co-produced with The National Geographic Channel, US
Presenter - Casey Anderson

Best Script Award
The Legend of Pale Male
BirdJail Productions (USA)
Script - Janet Hess

Best Series Award
How Earth Made Us
BBC (United Kingdom) Co-produced with BBC Factual & National Geographic Channel US, in association with ZDF

Short Film Award
The Coral Gardener
BBC (United Kingdom)

Films at 59 Sound Award
Ash Runners
Saint Thomas Productions (France) Co-produced with Arte France
Sound - Raphael Andrieu

Theatrical Award
The End of the Line
The Fish Film Company (United Kingdom)
Co-produced with Dartmouth Films, Calm Productions & Arcane Pictures

Wildscreen's Award to promote filmmakers from developing countries
The Wild Meat Trail
Dusty Foot Productions (India)
Filmmakers - Rita Banerji & Shilpi Sharma

Jury’s Special Prize
Life (The Series)
BBC (United Kingdom)
Co-produced with BBC NHU, Discovery, Skai, the Open University in association with RTI Spa.

Christopher Parsons Award for Outstanding Achievement
NATURE (Television series, USA)
WNET (USA)

WWF Golden Panda
Green
Tawak Pictures (France)

Ends

Contact: Helen Shrimpton, Communications & Marketing Manager
Telephone: 0117 328 5952
Email: helen.shrimpton@wildscreen.org.uk

Previous press releases

Wednesday 22nd September 2010
Wildscreen puts on show the world's natural winners

Friday 21th May 2010
Bristol Festival of Nature 2010

Wednesday 27th May 2009
Bristol Festival of Nature 2009

Friday 27th March 2009
Wildscreen supports WWF’s Earth Hour

Tuesday 10th February 2009
Wildscreen takes west’s finest wildlife filmmakers to India

Monday 2nd February 2009
Find ARKive's threatened marine species using Google Earth

Wednesday 7th January 2009
Wildscreen chairman receives OBE

Thursday 10th April 2008
Attenborough launches Wildscreen's Google Earth Layer