Breakthrough Talent

Productions from the best up-and-coming filmmakers, whose stories range from seeking the elusive spider tailed viper to a stunning portrait of our urban environment. The screenings will be followed by a Q&A with the Emerging Talent nominated filmmakers Lindsey Parietti and Karl Davies, and hosted by Rose O'Reilly.

Blood Island

Deep in the heart of Liberia’s jungles, hundreds of chimpanzees were taken from the wild. Captured, bred, and infected with hepatitis, our closest animal relatives were to unlock the mysteries of human diseases. But what started in the 1970s as an ambitious medical experiment took deeper and darker turns through the decades. Gripping to the core, Blood Island tells the powerful story of the chimpanzees, their captors and the man still fighting to save them.

Panda Award nomination: Icon Films Emerging Talent Award, NHNZ Short Award

Landscape of Consumption

The last half-century of exponential population growth combined with consumer-capitalism has vastly transformed the topography of our small green planet. The Landscape of Consumption depicts, through dramatic time-lapse photography, these manufactured environments and their perpetual processes of consumption. Via endless cityscapes and cathedral-like shopping malls, the film takes us on a mesmeric journey through our modern, almost dystopian, reality. Overall, 200,000 still images were created across 3 continents in 20 days to form this 10-minute short.

Panda Award nomination: Icon Films Emerging Talent Award

In the Realm of the Spider-tailed Viper

In the Realm of the Spider-tailed Viper reveals the discovery of a rare and unique snake called the Spider-Tailed Horned Viper and the amazing man who made it happen. On the journey to discover this snake, the production team met up with a farmer named Mahmoud, and sought his help to find the rare viper. During the making of this documentary, some strange things happened, and the destiny of Mahmoud changed!

Panda Award nomination: Icon Films Emerging Talent Award

Wildscreen Festival is the world’s largest and most prestigious wildlife and environmental filmmaking event which takes place in Bristol every two years. Wildscreen is a Bristol based charity with the goal to convene the best photographers, filmmakers and creative professionals with the most committed conservationists to create compelling stories about the natural world; that inspire the wider public to experience it, feel part of it and protect it.

Immerse yourself in the wild for a week of screenings from 15 – 21 October. See the full programme of screenings here.

If you're a Wildscreen Festival day/week delegate, enter the promo code to reserve your free ticket. You will be asked to show your delegate badge to gain entry to the screening.