My Garden of a Thousand Bees leads Wildscreen Festival Panda Award 2022 nominations

Wildscreen has announced the nominees for the Wildscreen Panda Awards 2022 – the highest honour in the international natural world storytelling industry – for its 40th anniversary edition.

One of the standout productions with 5 nominations is feature film My Garden of a Thousand Bees. The Passion Planet production is in the running for the Behaviour, Editing, Producer/Director, Scripted Narrative and Sound Awards. This charming film follows acclaimed wildlife filmmaker Martin Dohrn, who, locked down by coronavirus, turns his lenses on the surprising and spectacular bees living in his own urban garden in Bristol, England.

Tied for nominations is BBC Studios Natural History Unit’s landmark series highlighting the dramatic lives of plants, The Green Planet. This series, narrated by Sir David Attenborough, uses pioneering new filmmaking technology and the very latest science to reveal the strange and wonderful world of plants like never before.

Austrian-based Terra Mater Studios leads the way as the most nominated production company outside of the United Kingdom, with 7 category nominations. Their feature film Patrick and the Whale is in the running for 3 awards. The film follows former lawyer Patrick Dykstra on his travels to Dominica, as he seeks to find a special sperm whale he once encountered, who reveals the hidden world of her species.

Ruth Berry, chair of the nomination jury, said, “The 2022 Panda Awards competition attracted over 700 entries from 38 countries. Although coronavirus has had a large impact on production and creativity over the past two years, it lured filmmakers closer to their own backyards to produce inspiring and intimate stories.

“This year’s nominations show a strong trend away from the classic interpretation of ‘natural history’. We are no longer ‘observers’ of the natural world, we are a part of it”, says Ruth. The interrelationships between humans and nature, and in particular how this adapted during a global pandemic, is a theme threaded throughout the nominations. Whether focusing on a new appreciation for life on your doorstep, such as My Garden of a Thousand Bees or Springwatch, or animals reclaiming urban spaces during lockdown, as seen in My Neighbour the Bear and Penguin Town.

Wildscreen’s Nomination Jury was composed of 34 craft professionals and producers working across the globe who met virtually to decide upon their top three nominees for each of the 15 categories.

Category sponsors are: Films at 59 Cinematography Award and Films at 59 Sound Award, Save our Seas Foundation Impact Award, UWE On-Screen Talent Award, Off The Fence Production Team Award, Terra Mater Studios Series Award and Aurum Sustainability Award.

Returning to an in-person event for the first time since 2018, the winners will be announced on 13 October at the Panda Awards Ceremony, during the first ever hybrid edition of the Wildscreen Festival.

The Ceremony is the peak of the Wildscreen Festival period, which welcomes over 2,000 of the world’s leading natural world filmmakers, photographers, broadcasters and content creators online and in-person for 10-14 October for more than 120 speakers and 24 sessions.

Full Hybrid Passes and Virtual Passes to join Wildscreen Festival are now available online, as well as tickets to attend the Awards Ceremony in Bristol, UK on Thursday 13 October.

The full list of nominations is available on Wildscreen’s website.