ECKERNFÖRDE / SONDERBORG The International Wildlife Film Festival Green Screen has rounded off its 2015 festival with a guest performance in Sonderborg, Denmark. At the „Alsion“ arts centre, more than 1300 school children and adults watched „The Arid Namib“, a film portraying Namibia's desert region. At the festival, this production received the award for the Best Camera, which was donated by the newspaper publisher „Schleswig-Holsteinischer Zeitungsverlag (sh:z)“. The guest performance in Sonderborg follows up on the successful cooperation which Green Screen has cultivated with its Danish partners in the previous years. In addition to the town of Sonderborg and its arts centre „Alsion“, another cooperating partner was the „House of Science“...
Early Friday morning, around 1100 school children from the Sonderborg region enjoyed a double bill in nature education: scientific demonstrations followed by the film about Namibia's desert. The „House of Science“ staged numerous information booths and experimental stands concerning topics on nature, conservation and climate change. The multitude of interested pupils literally turned the „Alsion“ into a huge classroom.
Afterwards, Green Screen's film „The Arid Namib“ inspired the students with spectacular footage of Namibia's wildlife and vivid explanations of complex biological issues. „The synergy between natural history knowledge offered in the ‚House of Science’ and the outstanding film from this year's Green Screen festival proved to be extraordinarily successful “ explained Ulrike Lafrenz, head of the promotion society's board of directors. Everyone was delighted about the great number of students who were obviously thrilled by their school trip. „We plan to continue the cooperation with our Danish partners next year in order to match this year's success. We are thus able to expand Green Screen's nature education activities, since in Germany we are already reaching several thousands of school children with nature films and discussions with filmmakers and scientists“ said Ulrike Lafrenz.
In the evening after the school screening, some 250 viewers from Sonderborg also watched the film about Namibia, as well as „Manaus – Monkey City“, yet another film from this year's Green Screen programme.
As we reported earlier, the 9th International Wildlife Film Festival Green Screen has again broken its own record number of visitors: from September 10th -14th, Eckernförde welcomed 16000 viewers to watch more than 100 nature film productions from all around the world. A further 10 000 visitors participated in the various events offered by Green Screen at other occasions than the five festival days. It so remains the wildlife film festival hosting the largest number of guests in all of Europe.
Translation: Karin Neumann