PAMPLONA – The XI edition of Telenatura, the international  festival for the conservation and promotion of nature, awarded the Austrian documentary ‘Danube – From the black forest to the black sea’ with the ‘Ciudad de Pamplona’ prize. It took two and a half years,  420 days of shooting and a long journey through 11 countries of Europe for Rita and Michael Schlamberger to produce this documentary, who said: ‘We are very honoured and very proud to get this award.’

The Planetario of Pamplona held the award ceremony of the 2012 edition of the festival, which hosted 116 films from 24 different countries and was directed by Bienvenido León and Santiago Echeverría.  China was the protagonist thanks to an agreement between Telenatura and the International Animal and Natura Film Festival in Ya'an.



China was represented by a photographic exposition at the Planetarium but most of all by the screening of ‘Moon Bear’, a documentary about the bear bile industry. Xion Junhui and Chen Yuanzhong directed this documentary which exposes the practice of extracting bile from living bears to sell to the pharmacy industry, a product which is in great demand in China because it is said to cure liver diseases and is part of the old medicine tradition of the country.  The documentary reveals the tragic plight of this animal and shows how inhumanely farmers treat bears, caging them for years.  The NGO Animal Asia is trying to save as many bears as it can, exposing these practices to a society that ignores a synthetic bile that is as effective as the traditional one, yet is unapproved by the government due to the potential harm caused to small farmers.

‘Moon Bear’ won the award for the conservation values.  Three members of the national film archive of China collected the prize, with Tongsheng Zhao among them.  He attended the screening of the documentary on Tuesday October 23th and lead the Q&A after the documentary.  Tongsheng Zhao pointed out the importance to know what is really happening behind the selling of this product and emphasised that small farmers’ survival by selling bile is not a good enough reason to continue the practice.

The best Spanish production was ‘Rhinoceros, the curse of the white horn’ by Explora Films.  Mónica Herrero, dean of the Communications Faculty of the University of Navarre, presented the award to the film’s director Fernando González Sitges.  The director thanked the festival for this recognition and noted the importance of continuing the production of films that defend the conservation of endangered animals.



The Telenatura film festival has twin objectives; on the one hand it seeks to promote knowledge and respect for nature through the screening of quality documentaries, and on the other hand it also aims to support producers and directors – especially the younger ones – to show their work. Bienvenido León, one of the directors the festival, said at the beginning of the award ceremony: ‘Film and television are great tools to change the world.’ Telenatura uses these tools in other to change the tendency to destroy our environment and the living things that belong to it.

Honours of the XI Telenatura International Festival:

Best Film, “Ciudad de Pamplona” Award
Danube – From the Black Forest to the Black Sea (ORF – Austria)

Best Amateur Production
Land and Water (Animal survival) – Tierra y agua (Supervivencia animal) –  (Pedro Poveda – Spain)

Best Feature
XXI century according to Poblet – El siglo XXI según Poblet (TVE – Spain)

Best NGO production
Cantabrian Bears – Osos cantábricos (Fundación Oso Pardo – Spain)

Best Spanish production
Rhinoceros, the curse of the white horn – Rinocerontes, la maldición del cuerno mágico (Explora films – Spain)

Best script
Broken Tail (Crossing the Line Films – Ireland)

Best photography
La France Sauvage (Gedeon Programmes – France)



Best direction
Hummingbirds – Jewelled Messengers (Terra Mater Factual Studios – Austria)

Guillermo F. Zuñiga Award (ASECIC)  for popular science (ASECIC)
Planet Dinosaur – Feathered Dragons (BBC – United Kingdom)

Award for conservation values
Moon Bear (Xiong Junhui y Chen Yuanzhong – China)

Jury's special mention
Awás, the most threatened tribe – Awás, la tribu más amenazada de la Tierra (Survival International – United Kingdom)