Guardians of the Last Lions
Director : Melchert Meijer zu Schlochtern

Guardians of t he Last Lions follows Mallé Gueye, a Senegalese conservationist whose journey bridges science and spirit. After earning his PhD in Belgium, Mallé returns to the wild heart of Niokolo Koba National Park, home to West Africa’s last lions. Through blistering heat and shifting seasons, he tracks the elusive predators, collects DNA samples, and works alongside former poachers and local farmers to protect a fragile ecosystem. With support from fellow wardens and researchers from Panthera, Mallé confronts the harsh realities of poaching while finding hope in the sighting of a lioness with three cubs — a rare sign of renewal. But as plans for a massive dam in Guinea-Conakry threaten to disrupt the Gambia River’s flow, Mallé’s mission becomes a race against time. Guardians of the Last Lions is a cinematic journey through courage, coexistence, and the fight to preserve a vanishing legacy.

Ask the other animals
Director: Eline Helena Schellekens

Who hasn’t fantasized about talking to animals as a child? From children’s books and fairy tales to religious texts and animated films, our longing to connect with other species has shaped stories across cultures for centuries. Talking to other animals is a fundamental human desire. Today, we share the planet with an estimated 8.7 million species, yet we understand the language of only one. That may be about to change. With the help of artificial intelligence, we are on the brink of decoding animal communication. This documentary follows pioneering scientists who are pushing the boundaries of interspecies understanding, and artists who are exploring its emotional, philosophical, and ethical implications. What will other animals tell us once we can understand what they are saying? And what might we learn when they finally have a voice in our human centered world?

Wolf Eyes
Producer: Veronica Wood & Andrea Walji

Through Indigenous lenses and in collaboration with storytellers and conservationists, this hybrid narrative-documentary investigates British Columbia’s ongoing wolf cull- an aerial killing program that continues to remove thousands of wolves under the pretext of protecting caribou populations. The film weaves Indigenous knowledge with Western science to reveal how flawed data, outdated population counts, and government policy have perpetuated a destructive system rooted in resource extraction. Supported by ecological research, we uncover the wolf’s essential role in maintaining healthy forests. Through art and storytelling, the film traces the cultural and spiritual kinship between wolves and people, questioning how industrial expansion continues to justify violence against the natural world, and offering a vision of coexistence grounded in Indigenous governance, scientific integrity, and collective responsibility to restore harmony to the land.

Out Of The Bush (working title)

Logline: Neighbours In Conflict

Director: Floris Tils & Ariet Bouman

In Simon’s Town, two communities share the same mountain, streets, and problems. Baboons were here first, but displaced from fertile lowlands, they now collide with the town that replaced their foraging grounds.
Without interviews, this observational film follows characters with hierarchies, behaviours, and emotions we recognize as our own, while making impossible choices, defending territories, protecting families. The camera shifts perspectives, bringing two species eye to eye.
As both struggle to coexist, an uncomfortable truth emerges: this isn’t a problem to solve, but a future to negotiate. The question is no longer who belongs, but whether we can share this drastically shaped world.

Floris Tils and Ariet Bouman share a deep drive to create positive impact for our planet. Floris is an established documentary filmmaker (first feature nominated at WFFR), Ariet is an ecologist with extensive fieldwork experience. Together, they bring human-wildlife conflicts to screen with nuance and empathy.

Het Land van duizend Landjes
Director: Tim Visser

Hidden within our landscapes, the smallest creatures reveal the greatest stories. All around us, in the weeds, beneath stones, and in the smallest pools, extraordinary tales unfold. A universe of highstakes dramas, fierce battles, and surprising comedy, performed by the tiniest of characters. From the antlion’s deadly trap to the graceful aerial duels of amorous damselflies. These magical stories are bound to the landscapes they inhabit. Yet little by little, those landscapes slowly vanishing, transformed, or even lost, by the choices we make. This film invites us to look closer, to shift our perspective, and to see how even the smallest stories can inspire us to protect the greater one we all share.

Historia Animalium
Director: Edward Snijders

Historia Animalium is a 52-minute philosophical film that weaves fragments of Aristotle’s observations on animals with contemporary visual imagery. Without a conventional storyline, the film invites the viewer into a contemplative space where ancient thought and modern perception meet. Rather than illustrating Aristotle literally, it explores how his ideas echo through our changing relationship with animals, nature and knowledge itself. The result is a poetic, essayistic film that blurs time and genre, appealing to audiences interested in philosophy, ecology, experimental cinema and visual anthropology.

Elephant in the Room
Director: Jura Bakx

A young girl’s beloved stuffed elephant, Ellie, suddenly gets lost. In her play world, where her toys come to life, the loss has a big impact on the animals of the African savanna. As the girl searches for Ellie, we witness the consequences of the disappearance of elephants within an ecosystem: an impala has more trouble finding food, a business of dwarf mongoose cannot find a place for their home, and a warthog is too warm to play because of a lack of deep puddles of water. This film showcases the changes in the natural world when an endangered keystone species would go extinct through an understandable and emotional story.

Nightlife
Anice Hut

The documentary Nightlife offers a unique journey through Groningen’s nightlife—seen through the eyes of animals. From a zebra jumping spider disturbed in a beer bottle to a rat navigating the neon-lit streets, the city transforms after dark. Just outside the city, a barn owl reveals a quieter, yet connected world. This visually striking film explores how countless creatures live, hide, and survive alongside us. What does the night truly look like—when we’re not the ones watching? Anice Hut is a 24 year old script writer and film director based in Groningen, The Netherlands. She creates new age nature films, an art piece where people can find an escape, education, inspiration and wonderment. For ‘Nightlife’ Anice Hut is collaborating with Andres Fouche. Film has been released, with this pitch she is looking for distribution options.

Koolmezen

Erik den Boer

A film about the 70 year research on the behaviour and character of the Great tit (Parus major). We see evolution happening in the longest running scientific, ethological research programs in the world. We discover the fascinating behaviour of these birds and how their individual characters help them adapt to changing circumstances.

The Schoolyard Secret

Marit Daams

Amid running children, football games and school equipment lies an unexpected wilderness. The Schoolyard Secret reveals the hidden animal life of a green schoolyard. Seen through the eyes of its inhabitants, we follow three main characters: the caddisfly larva, the great tit and the hedgehog. As the day unfolds from morning chaos to evening silence we discover how they survive, build, feed and reproduce in an environment that at first glance seems to belong only to humans. The film shows that biodiversity is not only found in forests or nature reserves, but also in the very place where children play every day. With humor and a sense of wonder, the narration guides the young audience (ages 9–12) through the life cycles and surprising relationships between species. The documentary is supported by an educational program developed by IVN, teaching children how to create habitats that attract these animals to their own schoolyard. The Schoolyard Secret is both an ode to nature close to home and an invitation to look at the everyday with fresh eyes. Because those who look closely will see more.