A brand new film festival came to Liverpool’s Epstein Theatre this week, bringing together incredible stories from nature to the big screen by independent movie and documentary makers from around the world.
These short films in ‘Wilderland’ offer insight into the stories of elusive species like the snow leopard, orangutan and humpback whale.
It came to Liverpool on Monday as part of a 26-destination tour across the UK and Ireland and is the country’s first and only touring wildlife film festival.
The founders of Wilderland, Dan O’Neill and Issac Rice, both see a bright future with their collective and for their project to “go international and have the films reach other audiences”.
YouTube: Scott Clarkson
Mr Rice told JMU Journalism “The David Attenborough documentaries are always number one and are seen by so many people, but there was no platform for these amazing independent films, so that’s where Wilderland comes in.”
The pair chose 50 short films from all the entries to the festival for a panel of two, Doug Allen, award-winning ‘Planet Earth’ cameraman, and Louise Heren, producer and director of Big Cat Diary, to select nine films to be showcased. All tell a story and carry a conservation message.
“The nine films that we’ve chosen were the ones that stirred something inside me, the ones that I had an emotional reaction to, because that’s the only way you’re going to sell conservation to someone,” said Rice.