Eckernförde, September 5, 2013. Natural history filmmaking pioneer Sir David Attenborough will be honoured with this year's Heinz Sielmann Award for his lifetime achievement. Inge Sielmann, widow of the late wildlife filmmaker Heinz Sielmann († 2006), will present the prize at the International Wildlife Film Festival Green Screen on September 7th in the Baltic seashore town of Eckernförde, Schleswig-Holstein.
"Sir David Attenborough is a wanderer, discoverer and mediator between worlds and between humans, in a way they are rarely found", Inge Sielmann explained at the honours announcement on Thursday (September 5th ) in Eckernförde. The Heinz Sielmann Award is a private endowment donated by Inge Sielmann for the sixth time this year and valued at 5000 Euros. The prize has been awarded to outstanding na-tural history productions in the past years. This year, Inge Sielmann decided to "un-derline the unprecedented lifetime achievement of Sir David Attenborough".
"In his film productions, he has approached numerous facets of life on our earth, ex-amining them in order to bring them closer and make them accessible to the public", Inge Sielmann said. In doing so, he has provided the viewers with both new and fascinating insights and conveyed an understanding of the origin, the meaning and the complex interrelations of life itself.
The Green Screen Festival awards ceremony will take place on Saturday (September 7th ) on Gut Altenhof near Eckernförde with several hundred guests. Since Sir David Attenborough is currently filming in Australia, he will not be able to receive the prize in person from Inge Sielmann. Oliver Goetzl, wildlife filmmaker from Hamburg, will accept the distinction on his behalf. Last year, Goetzl cooperated closely with Sir Da-vid in England: he managed to win him as narrator for his prize-winning film "Jungle Book Bear".
British wildlife filmmaker and naturalist Sir David Attenborough, aged 87, has made numerous legendary documentaries with and for the BBC. He discovered new possi-bilities of presenting the wonders of nature on television. The ground-breaking series "Life on Earth" is not only among the most-watched programmes ever aired in the world. It also set new standards for the quality of natural history films and influenced a whole generation of documentary filmmakers.
In his cinematic oeuvre, Sir David has further intensely dedicated himself to funda-mental anthropological themes, such as the tribal art of non-European indigenous peoples. His documentaries in the series "The Tribal Eye" still constitute the most comprehensive film work on the subject to this day.
The International Wildlife Film Festival Green Screen takes place for the seventh time this year. We are again expecting more than 12 000 nature-loving visitors, among them also 3500 school children. Green Screen has confirmed its position as the lar-gest wildlife film festival in Germany and is the most well-attended by the non-professional public in Europe.
Green Screen has made Schleswig-Holstein a meeting point for filmmakers from all over the world. During the five days of the festival, Eckernfoerde takes on an interna-tional flair, attracting more filmmakers each year, for example from Japan, the United States, India and also from numerous European countries.
For filmmakers, producers and TV-station representatives in charge of scheduling, Green Screen has gained the reputation of a first-choice location and plat- form for sharing expertise. For these guests, the festival offers several high-profile workshops, including seminars with internationally recognised filmmakers.
280 nature and wildlife films from 35 countries were submitted to the seventh festival, among them entries from Burma, Papua New Guinea and Sri Lanka. Three natural history film productions were submitted by the renowned BBC. The large number of entries underlines the significance which Green Screen has gained in the internatio-nal field of wildlife film.
A programme jury composed of filmmakers, scientists and journalists has selected more than 100 superb productions to be screened in Eckernfoerde from September 5th to 9th, including worldwide and national premieres. The Green Screen awards will be presented in 15 categories. Apart from the Heinz Sielmann Award, these include the best film, the best cinematography and the best ecological film. Furthermore, the-re will be two audience awards.