Wildscreen 2004, Bristol, UK

Ever since 1953 when Irwin Allen released his classic nature film, The Sea Around Us, and Walt Disney followed suit a few months later with his The Living Desert, the public has come to see wildlife cinematographers as crucial connections to and interpreters of the natural world.

As filmmaking and film viewing technologies have improved and become cheaper and more widespread, people the world over have a much greater sense of the earth’s beauty – and fragility – than people of even a generation ago.

You have only to look at the rich offerings on cable TV to see how wildlife films have become almost omnipresent, and presented at a level of quality that simply wasn’t available 30 or 40 years ago. PBS’s Nova and The Living Edens series, National Geographic Channel, Animal Planet, BBC Nature and a host a regional and university wildlife shows produce a constant stream of brilliantly photographed, edited, narrated and presented documentaries about life on earth.

The high quality does more than entertain. People’s images of animals have been dramatically changed because of wildlife photographers’ skills. Old images of sharp-fanged, temperamental gorillas attacking humans or clumpy jellies bobbing endlessly and listlessly atop the sea have been replaced by truer images of gentle, sociable vegetarians and magnificently colored, billowing, transparent creatures. Gorillas can still get ornery, and jellies’ beauty doesn’t make their stings any less excruciating, but the new images have taken the edge off the old fears and ignorance.

It should be no surprise, then, that wildlife filmmakers and photographers have created their own film festival, both to show off new works and to honor people who are continuing to have a profound influence of how humanity sees nature. The big festival this year is Wildscreen 2004, which will take place Oct. 10-15 in Bristol, UK.

Wildscreen, more than 20 years old, is a combination awards ceremony, preview event, trade show and schmoozefest. Its annual Panda Awards, which honor outstanding films and producers, have been expanded this year into four new categories: Campaigning, Earth Sciences, News and Popular Broadcast, signaling an increasing awareness of the political uses of wildlife films and an expansion of the “Wildscreen” concept to match the public’s increasing fascination with geosciences. 

Being a British show, Wildscreen has even scheduled debates on current issues. It’s priming attendees’ thought processes by inviting such notables as Sir David Attenborough, Jane Goodall and Richard Leakey to come on board to discuss the state of the natural world and mankind’s interactions with it. Three large movie screens will host a continuously running stream of new and old nature films.

Wildscreen’s web site offers detailed information on the festival’s history, packages for the 2004 event and things to do in Bristol.

— Patrick Totty