Welcome to wild Europe!

European Wildlife Film Awards

Film submission period ended Rules & Terms
© Horst Jegen

First European wildlife film competition

Prizes will be awarded for the first time in Febuary 2025

The first award ceremony will take place on 15 February 2025 at the Hamburg Wildlife Theatre in HafenCity. All selected films will be screened there over the course of the following year.

The venue for the European Wildlife Film Awards is the cinema in the Wildlife Embassy.

Award Categories

The European Wildlife Film Awards present the highest prize money for a nature film competition in Europe. The prizes are awarded in six categories. Five of the winners are selected by an independent jury. The winner of the Audience Award is chosen by the audience and will be awarded the following year.

Category Wildlife2025
Category Biodiversity2025
Category Nature Conservation2025
Category Audience Award2025
Category Best Story2025
Category Short Film2025
  • Best European Film: Wildlife

    This prize is awarded to the film that entails the most fascinating and impressive animal footage. The animals must be wild animals that are found in Europe.

    Endowed with 15,000 Euros

    Sponsor: German Wildlife Foundation

  • Best European Film: Biodiversity

    The prize is awarded to the film that shows the diversity of European flora and fauna in a special way, presents wildlife habitats, natural areas, landscapes or ecosystems and, if applicable, addresses their endangerment.

    Endowed with 10,000 Euros

    Sponsor: VILSA-BRUNNEN Otto Rodekohr GmbH

  • Best European Film: Nature Conservation

    The prize is awarded to an outstanding film that focuses on measures or people who are committed to the protection of nature and species. In addition to the problems of species extinction and the destruction of nature, solutions should also be shown.

    Endowed with 10,000 Euros

    Sponsor: German Wildlife Foundation

  • Audience Award

    The viewers of the competition award marks to the films shown. The film with the best overall rating wins the Audience Favorite Award. Every film shown as part of the competition program has the chance to win the Audience Award.The prize will be awarded for the first time in February 2026.

    Endowed with 5,000 Euros

    Award sponsor: N. N.

  • Best Story

    This award recognizes the best story in a film.

    Endowed with 5,000 Euros

    Sponsor: POPULAR GmbH

  • Best Short Film

    The prize is awarded to a short film that manages to present a topic in a special way in 1 to 15 minutes. Decisive factors can be originality, cinematic quality, a good story or special aesthetics.

    Endowed with 2,500 Euros

    Sponsor: Frankonia Handels GmbH & Co. KG

CALL FOR ENTRY

The submission period 2024 ended

Filmmakers could submit their films for the European Wildlife Film Awards 2025 March 1 - May 31, 2024 via FilmFreeway. The entry fee is 35 euros. Short films are free.

Please take note of the conditions of participation!

Regulations

This is the jury of the very first European Wildlife Film Awards

Biologist and musician Dominik Eulberg, film producer Arnd Greve, biologist and journalist Dagny Lüdemann, Barbara Makowka from the German Forest Protection Association and Viennese researcher and museum curator Frank E. Zachos have selected the nominees from 50 films in the final. It was a constructive and inspirational meeting.

Who are the winners? We will reveal this on 15 February 2025 in Hamburg, at the gala in the Embassy of Wildlife.

  • Dominik Eulberg, musician, author, nature conservationist

    Dominik Eulberg

    Musician, author, biologist, nature conservationist

    Dominik Eulberg has been musically active worldwide for over 30 years. He has received numerous awards for his musical work. He actually studied ecology, because nature and the protection of native biodiversity have been close to his heart since childhood. Dominik Eulberg is a book author, composes music for nature films, develops games that raise awareness of nature, is an ambassador for many nature conservation organisations and a guest scientist at the Museum of Natural History Berlin. He regularly publishes his own television reports and columns.

  • Arnd Greve, CEO POPULAR GmbH

    Arnd Greve

    CEO POPULAR GmbH

    Arnd Greve is a media scientist and has worked as an editor, director and creative director for international entertainment companies and his own company network, POPULAR GROUP GmbH.  Since 2012, he has been involved in nature conservation projects, including collaborations with the German Wildlife Foundation. Since then, he has also been advising his clients in the fields of sustainable growth and sustainable supply chain in order to put companies on a forward-looking course as quickly as possible.

  • Dagny Lüdemann, biologist and chief science reporter, ZEIT ONLINE

    Dagny Lüdemann

    Biologist and chief science reporter, ZEIT ONLINE

    Discovering undiscovered life on earth – that is the job of Dagny Lüdemann, who is out and about in nature as chief science reporter for ZEIT ONLINE. The biologist, science journalist and passionate diver reports on wild animals and endangered species and uncovers how and why humans are destroying their environment. And more importantly: how they could stop. She has accompanied a number of wildlife filmmakers on adventurous filming trips, and as a jury member for various festivals, she has seen hundreds of nature films. Her personal goal: to make her own wildlife film.

  • Barbara Makowka, Managing Director German Forest Protection Association

    Barbara Makowka

    Managing Director German Forest Protection Association Regional Association Hamburg 

    Barbara Makowka has been passionate about nature since childhood and loves to spend her free time outdoors. She has been Managing Director of the German Forest Protection Association Regional Association Hamburg since 2020 and manages the WÄLDERHAUS – a sustainably designed multifunctional building in Hamburg-Wilhelmsburg. Since 2019, she has been Managing Director of the International Sustainability Academy (ISA), a scholarship programme that supports committed changemakers from the Global South in the field of sustainability.

  • Prof. Dr. habil. Frank E. Zachos, Natural History Museum Vienna

    Prof. Dr. habil. Frank E. Zachos

    Natural History Museum Vienna

    After studying biology, philosophy and history of science and completing his doctorate in zoology and his habilitation in zoology and evolutionary biology, Frank E. Zachos has been head of the Mammal Collection at the Natural History Museum Vienna since 2011. He has been affiliated professor at the Department of Genetics at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein, South Africa, since 2019.

    Film selection and nominations

    245 films have been entered to the first European Wildlife Film Competition.

    All films selected for the competition can be seen in the cinema at the Wildlife Embassy.

    Our selection commitee for the feature length films has now picked 50 films for the „Official Selection 2025“. These 50 films will be screened at the theatre of the Wildlife Embassy from February 2025.

    Website Wildlife Embassy