Wildscreen Unveils Official Selection Programmers

We are proud to announce our team of six international Programmers to curate the Wildscreen Official Selection competition as part of the Festival’s 40th Anniversary edition.

The 2022 Programme Chair is Lucy Jane Mukerjee, a queer British-Indian programming disruptor and social impact film curator based in New York. Since 2018, she has been a Senior Programmer at the Tribeca Festival and co-founder of the Programmers of Colour Collective.

Lucy is joined by: 

• Alice Aedy, a UK-based documentary photographer, filmmaker and campaigner, whose work focuses on forced migration, environmental issues and women’s stories. She is also the co-founder of earthrise studio.
• Founder of Raconteur Productions, Chioma Onyenwe, joins the team from Nigeria, drawing on her interdisciplinary training as a filmmaker to create art across different mediums that lie in the intersection of culture, history and identity.
• Elizabeth Swanson Andi is a visual storyteller, environmental advocate and member of the indigenous Napu Kichwa community of the Ecuadorian Amazon.
• Academy Award-winning director James Reed joins the team from the wildlife film capital of the world, Bristol. He won the coveted Golden Panda Award at Wildscreen Festival in 2020 for My Octopus Teacher shortly before recognition at the Oscars.
• Los Angeles-based programmer Milo Talwani is a curator who oversees the selection process at Sundance Film Festival. They are a technical coordinator for Tribeca Immersive and curate XR exhibition events.

This truly international programming team, spanning across 4 continents, will honour a series of feature-length, short films and immersive or extended reality productions told by a diverse range of natural world storytellers.

Wildscreen introduced the Official Selection in 2020 to discover and honour original and authentic stories that speak to different audiences with urgency about the natural world. The programme was also established to open up the Festival to a wider range of storytellers, embracing independents, first-time filmmakers and stories told through immersive formats.

This year, the competition aims to highlight the voices of filmmakers from underrepresented groups in the environmental film industry, particularly stories told by filmmakers based in the Global South or who identify as indigenous, who are most impacted by climate change and biodiversity loss. 

The programmers will select 35 productions from a diverse range of filmmakers who will each receive a laurel, certificate and unique sustainably-sourced trophy. Also up for grabs are a Programmer Prize and Audience Award which will grant a unique laurel and £2,000 and £1,000 cash prizes respectively. One production which demonstrates innovative sustainable practices behind the scenes will be recognised with a Sustainable Merit.

Submissions are open until 14 April 2022 and can be made here.

Selected productions will be screened as part of the first ever hybrid Wildscreen Festival from 10-14 October and will be available to stream online for 3 months via the online Festival platform.

A variety of hybrid and virtual passes have just been released, allowing delegates to choose how and when they experience the festival. Tickets can be purchased here.