The weekly podcasts of the South African online production Earth-Touch have been nominated in the ARKive New Media Award category of the coveted Panda Awards, to be presented at the Wildscreen wildlife film festival in Bristol in October.
The nomination panel of the prestigious wildlife festival Wildscreen met in May to watch 440 entries from 43 countries to decide who will compete for the Panda Awards. The panel comprised of 13 judges from nine countries, who represented a wide range of industry skills and backgrounds. The team was also joined by an editor and an earth sciences expert, who helped provide those particular categories with additional expertise. Separate specialist judging panels were assembled for the New Media, Theatrical and Children’s Choice Awards (the latter comprising school children in both Bristol and Zimbabwe).
The judges identified 62 films which will go forward to the final jury in October, just prior to the Festival. There were a few notable and outstanding films, the Campaign Award received several entries “…with outstanding creative approaches to environmental issue campaigns…”. In the Natural History Museum’s Environment Award judges observed that “the large number of entries in this newly created category clearly reflects the growing importance of environmental issues in our world and in the media, where the topic has graduated from the fringe position it held in the not so distant past to a position of prominence. We saw an extraordinary range of subjects and styles, from major series to student films, which both inspired us and made selection difficult.”
For full list of Panda Award nominees log onto www.wildscreenfestival.org.
