The Nature, Environment and Wildlife Filmmakers (NEWF) is proud to announce that two NEWF-supported films, ‘Wild Hope: Pangolin Protectors’ and ‘O mar para Analine (Sea to Analine)’, both set against a Mozambican backdrop, have been named as finalists at the prestigious 2025 Jackson Wild Media Awards. These awards are aimed at celebrating excellence and innovation in nature, science and conservation storytelling.
“This recognition is not only a celebration of the filmmakers’ craft, it is a call to the global storytelling community to listen more closely to voices from Africa and the global south, to shift the lens through which conservation is portrayed,” said Noel Kok, Co-Founder and Executive Director of NEWF.
NEWF’s mission has always been to create opportunities for African filmmakers to lead in telling the continent’s most urgent environmental and conservation stories.
From capacity enhancement and fellowships to international labs and partnerships, NEWF is building an ecosystem where African storytellers thrive and collaborate with each other. Seeing two productions from its ranks be recognised at the Jackson Wild Media Awards affirms that this approach is working, shifting power, narrative, and production capacity to local creators who live and work in the very environments they film.
About the films:
Wild Hope: Pangolin Protectors – in 2023, NEWF partnered with Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park, home to Africa’s only in-park Master’s in Conservation Biology program, to run a year-long fellowship with 12 African filmmakers. The African Science Film Fellowship, supported by HHMI Tangled Bank Studios, afforded the filmmakers the opportunity to be embedded in the park for two months across June and September. Each filmmaker profiled a Conservation Biology student, producing self-shot and self-edited short films. Divided into teams, they also pitched story concepts to be developed for Tangled Bank’s Wild Hope series which profiles changemakers who are restoring and protecting our natural world, with two selected for further development, one of which, Wild Hope: Pangolin Protectors, is now a finalist at the Jackson Wild Awards in the Conservation Short Form category.
In Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park, wildlife veterinarian Elias Mubobo and a team of rangers rescue and rehabilitate pangolins, the world’s only scaled mammals and a target of the illegal wildlife trade. At the country’s only pangolin rehabilitation center, Elias not only nurses the animals back to health but also engages local children, inspiring the next generation to protect this endangered species.
O mar para Analine (Sea to Analine) is a film born out of the South-to-South Lab, hosted by NEWF in partnership with Santiago Wild in March 2025. The lab brought together filmmakers, many of them National Geographic Explorers, from across Africa and Latin America h to collaborate and produce original films in just 10 days. The film, showcased at the NEWF Annual Congress in Durban, follows Mozambican musician Muha as he creates a sonic gift for his niece, Analine, who has never seen the ocean. Through his journey of capturing the sounds of the sea, he not only connects with her but also undergoes personal growth. The film has since been named a finalist in the Global Voices category at the Jackson Wild Media Awards.”
“We’re so pleased to have been a part of the journey to this point, where we see talented filmmakers from Africa and global south collaborations emerging with productions that are on par with international standards,” said Pragna Parsotam-Kok, Executive Director of NEWF.
“They haven’t won yet, but the mere fact that these projects are finalists amongst so many others that were submitted from across the world is a feat in and of itself. This year, the Jackson Wild Media Awards received over 500 films from 48 countries and nearly 1,000 category entries. This fact illustrates that this year’s finalists showcase the most impactful, innovative, and inspiring storytelling from around the globe,” she added.
NEWF’s role in supporting filmmakers from across the African continent reflects its deliberate, long-term investment in talent through mentorship, production support, and access to networks traditionally closed off. This achievement speaks to a larger movement, one that insists that those most affected by environmental change must be the ones shaping how those stories are told.
The 2025 Jackson Wild Media Awards ceremony will take place this September 29 to October 3 and will be hosted at the Jackson Lake Lodge in Grand Teton National Park, USA. NEWF extends its congratulations to all the other finalists who are redefining conservation and environmental media globally.