“The Dragons of Galápagos,” a National Geographic Special that premiered in May 1998 on the U.S.’s NBC network has won the coveted World Wildlife Foundation (WWF) Golden Panda Award at the Wildscreen wildlife film festival. The prize is considered by natural history filmmakers to be one of the industry’s highest honors. Wildscreen was held in Bristol, U.K., last week.
Producers David Parer and Elizabeth Parer-Cook, together with their then three-year-old daughter Zoe, lived and worked for about two years in the Galápagos archipelago documenting the natural history of the “dragons,” or iguanas, there. They emerged with an unprecedented record of the great drama of life in this isolated string of islands off the coast of Ecuador. The Galápagos are home to two species of iguanas: the world’s only seagoing lizards and their landbound cousins.
“The Dragons of Galápagos” is a production of National Geographic Television and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and BBC Television. Nicolas Noxon is the executive producer for NGT. The head of NGT’s Natural History Unit is Keenan Smart.
Andrew Carl Wilk, Executive Vice President for Programming and Production at NGT, said, “David and Liz are among the elite wildlife filmmakers in the world today, and it gives us tremendous pleasure to see that excellence pay off for them. It is gratifying to see so many of our other productions recognized by Wildscreen as well, especially for staff producer Bruce Norfleet’s ‘Man-eaters of India,’ a great original production from National Geographic Television’s Natural History Unit.”
National Geographic Television’s Natural History Unit, the only one of its kind in the U.S., won 4 out of a total 16 awards at this year’s Wildscreen. In addition to the WWF Golden Panda Award for “The Dragons of Galápagos,” National Geographic Television productions or coproductions also won the following:
Discovery Channel Conservation/Environment Award
“People of the Sea,” produced by Hugh Miles and aired on EXPLORER on TBS Superstation
Innovation Award
“Man-eaters of India,” produced by Bruce Norfleet and aired on EXPLORER on TBS Superstation
Partridge Films Award for Editing
“Rat,” produced by Mark Lewis/ Radio Pictures and aired on EXPLORER on TBS Superstation
Wildscreen is a charitable trust established in Bristol, U.K., to foster a greater global appreciation of the natural world and the need to conserve it now and for the future. The Wildscreen wildlife festival is an international showcase that seeks to encourage and applaud excellence in film, television, and multimedia productions. The festival was started in 1982 and has been held every two years since. The festival with its program of debates, masterclasses in natural history filmmaking, lectures, and workshops is now recognized internationally as one of the world’s leading natural history film awards competitions, attracting many hundreds of entries and delegates from around the globe.
Press Contact for NGT:
Ellen Stanley
Tel: + 1 202 775 6755
Estanley@ngs.org
