Eckernförde, September 8th, 2013.
On Saturday, this year's winning films were awarded at the International Wildlife Film Festival GREEN SCREEN in Schleswig-Holstein's Baltic seashore town of Eckernförde. The prize for the "Best Film" went to the BBC-production "Wild Africa - Kalahari" by British directors Mike Gunton and James Honeyborne. The film focuses on spectacular wildlife behaviour which is amazing even for professionals. "Wild Africa - Kalahari" also won the Green Screen trophy for the "Best Postproduction".
In its seventh year, Green Screen again became a meeting point for nature lovers and professional filmmakers alike, welcoming more than 12 000 visitors, among them 3400 pupils. Green Screen has developed into the most well-attended festival of its kind in Europe and is by far the largest in Germany.
On Gut Altenhof near Eckernförde several hundred guests celebrated this year's winning films with Robert Habeck, Schleswig-Holstein's minister for the environment and energy. The awards presented by Green Screen are renowned and widely sought-after by wildlife filmmakers around the world. The seventh festival saw 280 nature film submissions from 35 countries, including first-time entries from Burma, Papua New Guinea and Sri Lanka.
For the third year in a row, the "sh:z Audience Award" donated by newspaper publisher "Schleswig-Holsteinischer Zeitungsverlag" was determined by 3000 viewers in the course of a screening tour in the run-up to the festival, which visited 15 towns and cities in Schleswig-Holstein as well as Sonderburg and Tingleff in Denmark. And the winner is: "The Meadows of Western Pomerania" by Christoph Hauschild.
Inge Sielmann, widow of wildlife filmmaking pioneer Heinz Sielmann, again donated the "Heinz Sielmann Award" endowed with 5000 Euros, this year honouring the English natural history filmmaker and scientist Sir David Attenborough for Lifetime Achievement.
Further awardees are:
Best Music: "The Empress and the Forest" by Andreas Laschober and Thomas Rilk, Austria
Best Marine Film: "Hot Tuna" by Rick Rosenthal, USA / Germany
Best Ecological Film: "Jungle under Water" by Serge Dumont, Frank Nischk, Sarah Zierul and Thomas Weidenbach, Germany
Green Report: "Atomic Africa" by Marcel Kolvenbach, Germany
Best Story: "A Wild Dogs Tale" by Joe Kennedy, South Africa
Best Cinematography: "The Unlikely Leopard" by Beverly and Dereck Joubert, South Africa
Best Independent Production: "The Year of the Red Kite - Gorgeous Griffins in the Lippe Region" by Sarah Herbort and Robin Jähne, Germany
Special Jury Award, Best Animal Behaviour: "War of the Whales - Orca Attack!" by Shiro Kagawa, Japan
Award of the Juvenile Jury: "The Tears of the Cheetah" by Angela Graas, Germany
Best Short Film: "Crossover" by Fabian Grodde, Germany
Best Short Film for Kids: "Feuermänner - Kampf gegen Chemie" (i.e. Firemen - Battle Against Chemistry) by Andreas Orth, Germany
Green Screen "Wildlaugh": "Ovulution" by Loretta Arnold, Switzerland
Eekholt Young Talent Award: "Freiwillig dabei - Ein ökologisches Jahr" (i.e. Voluntary Service - An Ecological Year) by
Pia Luisa, Hannah, Judith, Kaspar Phillip, Germany