Smithsonian Channel to Sponsor Santiago Wild Film Festival

Smithsonian Channel, alongside the multimedia company Jackson Wild, is sponsoring the inaugural Santiago Wild, the first film festival dedicated to wildlife and environmental documentaries in Chile.

World-renowned documentary producers and directors such as the U.S.’s Casey Anderson, Chile’s René Araneda, Mexico’s Emiliano Ruprah and Germany’s Tilman Remme will be in attendance to present and discuss their productions. Two such productions Smithsonian Channel will showcase during the event: Inside the Puma Triangle and Epic Animal Migrations: Mexico, both of which are premiering at the festival.

In Inside the Puma Triangle, Anderson, an expert on predators in Yellowstone, visits Torres del Paine, the favorite place of his friend Araneda, who for almost seven years has observed and filmed the life of different pumas in this national park in Chile. This place hosts one of the highest population densities of pumas in the world, and it is here that both experts discover the unique social dynamics of these great cats. In Epic Animal Migrations: Mexico, Ruprah travels through one of the most biodiverse countries in the world, to capture incredible animal migrations from tiny monarch butterflies to 30-ton gray whales.

The event will also feature the work of Beverly and Dereck Joubert, the globally known conservationists and filmmakers based in Africa, in the one-hour documentary Okavango River of Dreams: Paradise. The Jouberts, along with the National Geographic Society, are the founders of the Big Cats Initiative, whose mission is to halt the decline of big cats in the wild.

Organized by Ladera Sur, Chile’s most-visited nature platform, the event will also host a nationwide competition for Chilean producers of nature and environmental documentaries. The winner of the competition will be announced during the festival and their production will be screened at the event.

The event is set to take place March 18 through 20 at Centro Cultural de Fundación Corpartes in the Chilean capital.

“We are delighted to join forces with Jackson Wild in the launch of the first festival of its kind in Chile,” said David Royle, executive VP and chief programming officer at Smithsonian Networks. “We are very proud to be a part of this tremendous effort to showcase some of the world’s best natural-history and environmental productions and honor the outstanding filmmakers behind them. This is a time of urgency for the planet and the inspiring work of these professionals is one of the best ways to increase awareness of the issues that impact our natural world—globally and in Latin America.”

“We believe in the power of film to inspire wonder for our living planet and ignite the critical action that will be required to restore and protect its fragile but resilient ecosystems,” said Lisa Samford, executive director of Jackson Wild. “The role of storytelling has never been more crucial—and more powerful.”