The owls have landed
The first award ceremony took place on 15 February 2025 in Hamburg
The lucky winners received their trophies in the form of a wooden owl in the cinema of the Wildlife Embassy in HafenCity. Five highly endowed European Wildlife Film Awards were presented, the sixth, the Audience Award, will be presented in February 2026.
You can see which films won and impressions of the awards ceremony here.
European Wildlife Film Awards 2025 – The winners
Best European Film Wildlife: ‘Tale of the Sleeping Giants’ by Marko Röhr
Best European Film Nature Conservation: ‘Gute Nachrichten vom Planeten – Wie wir Moor, Heide und Wiese schützen.’ By Christian Heynen
Best European Film Biodiversity: ‘Welcome to the Forest – Mind the Gap’ by Jan Haft
Best Story: ‘Birdsong’ by Kathleen Harris
Best Short Film: ‘Pepe dives’ by Sven Bode
Audience Award: (Will be awarded for the first time in 2026.)
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. Four of the winners are selected by an independent jury. The winner of the Audience Award and the Short Film Award are chosen by the audience and will be awarded the following year.
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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
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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
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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
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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: NDR
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Best Story
This award recognizes the best story in a film.
Endowed with 5,000 Euros
Sponsor: POPULAR GmbH
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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 will be shown in the Wildlife Embassy.
Our selection committee has chosen 50 feature-length films and 12 short films for the “Official Selection 2025”.
The jury nominated 12 of the 50 feature-length films to select the winners in the categories of wildlife, biodiversity, nature conservation and storytelling. (The nominated films can be recognized by the orange flags and the winning films by the golden owl in the flag)
The 12 short films were shown in the cinema every day at the beginning of February. The winner in the short film category was chosen by the audience via a voting card at the Wildlife Embassy shortly before the award weekend.
Nature film fans can vote for the Audience Award for 2025 throughout the year. From the weekend of the awards ceremony until the end of 2025, Kino der Wildtiere will show the 50 feature-length films on Nature Film Wednesdays. Moviegoers have the opportunity to rate the films on site. The best-rated film will win the Audience Award, which will then be presented in 2026.
You can find the film program here:
Website Wildlife Embassy
