PWFF JURY
Our juried competition seeks more than exceptional filmmaking; we champion stories that emerge from lived experience, indigenous wisdom, and the profound connection between African communities and their natural heritage.
Our distinguished jury evaluates submissions through a decolonized framework that prioritizes:
- Authentic Representation: Stories told by and with African voices, challenging extractive narratives that have historically dominated wildlife storytelling
- Conservation Impact: Films that demonstrate genuine commitment to community-based conservation, environmental justice, and sustainable solutions rooted in local knowledge systems
- Cinematic Excellence: Technical mastery that serves powerful storytelling, with particular recognition for innovative approaches that reflect African creative traditions
- Ethical Production: Filmmaking practices that respect both wildlife subjects and human communities, ensuring benefit-sharing and meaningful collaboration rather than exploitation
- Transformative Vision: Content that advances conservation science while honoring the spiritual, cultural, and practical relationships between African peoples and their ecosystems
The PWFF jury represents a collective of accomplished filmmakers, conservationists, cultural advocates and industry disruptors who understand that the future of wildlife conservation lies in centering African leadership, knowledge, and storytelling. We celebrate films that not only document our natural world but actively contribute to its preservation through authentic, original, respectful, and empowering narratives.
Submit your work to join a movement that recognizes Africa’s rightful place as the authority on its own conservation story.
If your narrative is Rooted in Africa, Resonating Globally®, PWFF is your table.
Film submissions to the 2024 Pridelands Wildlife Film Fest juried competition are now open. At Pridelands Wildlife Film Fest, our work is solely focused on the documentation of wildlife species, natural history and conservation storytelling.
Our jury seeks to identify the best audio-visual productions which demonstrate scientific accuracy, ethical decisions made during production and demonstrate key efforts to improve our natural world. It also prioritizes a robust representation of perspective in each category.
Pridelands Wildlife Film Festival, the 4th edition. TBA
Since 2004, Natalie Cash has served as the Executive Producer in charge of video production at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), an international conservation organization founded in 1895 as the New York Zoological Society. Today, WCS works to conserve the world’s largest wild places in 14 priority regions, home to more than 50% of the world’s biodiversity. WCS also operates the largest system of urban wildlife parks in the world – Bronx Zoo, Central Park Zoo, Prospect Park Zoo and Queens Zoo and New York Aquarium on Coney Island – educating four million visitors each year about the importance of conservation. With three decades of experience in the industry, Cash directs, writes and edits short-form programming about WCS projects and stories for multiple platforms. The films she produces for WCS help advance conservation and understanding of our natural world, advocate for stronger policy and raise funds to support this work. Her films have won awards at the International Wildlife Film Festival and New York WILD and have been selected as finalists at Wildscreen and the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival. Cash is a Fellow of The Explorers Club and serves on the Board of the New York WILD Film Festival and the Advisory Council of Jackson Wild. Prior to joining WCS, she was a series producer and writer at the Emmy Award-winning documentary production company Pangolin Pictures where she worked on a diverse slate of documentary, children’s, nature and reality programming.
Sarah-Jane Walsh is a Bristol based Blue Chip Natural History Director. In a past life Sarah-Jane was a Marine Biologist specializing in Climate Change and Coral Bleaching. Wanting to reach a bigger audience with conservation messages Sarah-Jane began working in the Wildlife Film industry and has since worked on Planet Earth II, Our Planet and A Perfect Planet. Sarah-Jane is currently working at BBC Studios on an upcoming Blue Chip landmark Series. Sarah-Jane specializes in leading teams in some of the most challenging environments including Underwater and Cold habitats.
Karin Slater was invited as a lifetime member of the Academy and judge of the Oscars in 2020. She works as a director and cinematographer with her main interest in indigenous wisdom and wildlife. Her speciality is big cats having hand raised, two leopards, a lioness and working closely with cheetahs and tigers while living in remote parts of Africa. Her documentaries have screened at Sundance, Berlinale, Hot Docs, Museum of Modern Art, New York, Wildscreen and she has won numerous awards including the Trailblazer Award for innovative and creative work in the field of documentaries at Mipdoc, Cannes 2008, Best Feature Documentary at the International Innovations Film Festival 2019, Switzerland and she’s been eligible for an Oscar. She’s also a teacher of documentary filmmaking and was head mentor at Big Fish film school for seven years and has been a lecturer at Selkirk College, BC, Canada.
Yvonne is a distinguished writer, producer and media practitioner with over twenty years of experience in the TV, theatre and film industries gained in the United Kingdom, Ghana. Her portfolio of work includes writing and executive producing one of the earliest stage productions in the U.K to tackle the topic of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), which was performed live at Channel 4 Studios (U.K) and toured theatres including The Pleasance. Moreover, she is the creator and executive producer of the Heart of the Matter TV debate series tackling the issues facing African communities and the diaspora. She is the founder of the production company, I-Create Media.
Yvonne is the 2025 winner of the British Council Study U.K Alumni Award for ‘Culture and Creativity’ – the international award in which she represented and won on behalf of Ghana as a country. She is also the first African woman to win the British Urban Film Festival Award and a two-time winner of the Ghana Prominent Awards in the categories of Executive TV Producer and Actress of the Year. As an advocate for women and children, she addressed the 2021 World Vision Media Coalition on ending child marriage, with a focus on Sub-Saharan Africa- in which she highlighted key policies including the use of print and television to create global awareness strategies. She created the Empowering Women and Girl-Children Programme in partnership with the British Council Ghana as the nation’s flagship event to commemorate the United Nation’s International Day to End Violence against Women.
Additionally, Yvonne served as an external jury moderator for the British Council where she assessed applications for the £130,000 annual fund from domestic and international film and arts organisations.
Over a ten-year period, Yvonne worked as a Stakeholder Partnerships Manager for the U.K government where she played a pivotal role in establishing the Regeneration Partnership that overlooked the £100 million Stockwell Park Regeneration Programme.
Yvonne graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in English from Queen Mary, part of the University of London and Russell Group of top U.K universities. She also trained in a Bachelor of Arts in Acting at East 15 Acting School (University of Essex), recognised by the Guardian as a leading performing arts institute.
Shannon Malone-deBenedictis (she/her) is a documentary filmmaker, creative consultant, speaker, and facilitator. She has produced over 200 hours of programming for various outlets, including National Geographic, Discovery, Netflix, Sesame Studios, and others. Shannon has collaborated with the BBC, James Cameron, Sigourney Weaver, Sela Ward, James Spader, Dennis Quaid, and the Jackson Fork Ranch. She won two Emmy Awards at Red Rock Films: Outstanding Documentary Series for Disney+’s Secrets of the Whales and Outstanding Nature & Adventure Series for Netflix’s Penguin Town. She’s always loved telling stories, starting with writing her first play at age 10. Learn more about Shannon’s speaking topics and creative services at padlincreative.com.
Jolene van Antwerp – Jo returns to our panel bringing her wealth of experience as an award-winning editor with over 12 years in the industry. Her impressive portfolio includes work on the Emmy-nominated Jade Eyed Leopard, Sundance-premiered Okavango: River of Dreams, and the SAFTA-winning Tribe vs Pride. While her foundation is in natural history, Jolene’s expertise spans diverse genres including reality, dance, immersive VR, and scripted content. Her commitment to crafting resonant stories and continuous professional growth makes her an invaluable returning member of our jury.
Debra Aroko is a Kenyan filmmaker and producer with a deep passion for telling stories that capture the nuanced realities of the various communities within her continent. As the Co- director and Impact Producer of the feature-length documentary Searching for Amani, Debra received the Albert Maysles Best New Documentary Award at the Tribeca Film Festival, where the film premiered. Additionally, Searching for Amani won the Best Documentary Film Award at the Raindance Film Festival.
Debra serves as the Africa Manager for the Video Consortium, a global nonprofit media organization that connects and supports nonfiction filmmakers and visual journalists. In her role, she is responsible for developing programs and strategies to grow and support the community of African filmmakers. Her work includes fostering collaborations within Africa and globally, providing valuable resources, mentorship, and networking opportunities to filmmakers, and creating pathways for their work to reach international audiences. Debra’s commitment is to elevate African voices, making nonfiction storytelling a sustainable and impactful career choice.
Tosh Gitonga is a director, producer and founder of a new production house, Primary Picture. He has been on the Kenyan and African film scene since 2002. Having directed award winning films like Nairobi Half Life, which was selected as Kenya’s entry to the 85th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film, Tosh is easily one of the most celebrated filmmakers in Kenya and Africa.
David Tosh Gitonga is Kenyan by birth and residence. He terms his journey into film as a beautiful coincidence. He is self-taught, gaining his experience from working closely with respected film producers and directors like award winning, Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run (1998), The International (2009).
Tosh treasures the learnings from his humble beginnings as the tea boy and handy man on sets. He rose through the ranks and, in 2009, got his big break when he directed a thirteen-episode series, Changes, for one of Africa’s highest-ranking broadcasting and production houses, MNet.
One of Tosh’s strong points is his versatility, directing not just films and TV series, but over 100 commercials for top tier companies in Kenya and East Africa including Safaricom, MTN Uganda, Tusker Kenya and many More. Always challenging himself and reaching for more, Tosh’s latest film, Disconnect (2018) won Best Male Supporting Actor/ Best Sound and Best Cinematography at the Kalasha Kenya Film and Television Awards (2019) His latest work is 2 episodes on an upcoming South African Netflix original Series in Post production. Tosh is currently working on a new Exciting teen drama Series called Volume.
The gift of storytelling is what turned Likarion Wainaina into an award winning cinematographer and film/television director. With no formal film training, it is passion, practice and presence in the industry over the last ten years that has enabled Likarion to master the art of filmmaking. One of his first film, BETWEEN THE LINES, made history by becoming Kenya’s first film to be projected on an Imax screen. His next short film, BAIT, was selected as one of the top shorts to be screened at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival. He is also the co-founder of Kibanda Pictures a film production company that aims to tell African stories in an African way. His most recent feature film, SUPA MODO, received the Children’s Jury Special Mention at the 2018 Berlin International Film Festival and continues to be acclaimed at various film festivals around the continent and internationally amassing a more than 50 awards from all around the world and becoming Kenya’s Oscar submission to the 91st Academy Awards,
Makbul has become a trusted brand synonymous with versatility. As an all-round creative with 15+ years of experience, he is passionate about delivering quality performances whether on the silver screen, the airwaves or on stage.
An award-winning actor, Makbul is loved by fans for his leading roles in Aunty Boss, Varshita, Makutano Junction, County49 and Crime & Justice currently showing on Showmax.
He will always be remembered as the voice of Capital in the Morning, the face of the humorous Donovan on Aunty Boss and the mind behind numerous Ads, as well as successful events and productions.
Makbul continues to hone his skills through sheer hard work and refined charm.
