Grand Teton Award Winners Over the Years (1991-2018)

One of the greatest honors you can receive at the Jackson Wild Media Awards is our Grand Teton Award, which goes to the best film in the entire competition. Over the years, the Grand Teton Award has gone to some absolutely amazing films. Let's take a trip down memory lane and take a look at our past winners over the years:

1991: "Here Be Dragons" (National Geographic)

Filmed along Africa’s Grumeti River in Tanzania, Here Be Dragons chronicles the lives of the last surviving link to the dinosaur age – crocodiles. Both the cinematography and its subject matter are compelling, whether the “dragons” are using their famously powerful jaws to crush wildlife or tenderly carry their young. This film broke ITV viewing records with an audience figure of over 11 million.

1993: "Eternal Enemies" (National Geographic)

Bringing The Lion King to life, Eternal Enemies examines the intense rivalry between African lions and spotted hyenas. The story line dispels myths about the “king of beasts” and the “foolish, scavenging hyena.” Producers Dereck and Beverly Joubert (2013 Jackson Wild Legacy Award Winners) have lived and worked in the Savuti area of northern Botswana for ten years. The animals, accustomed to their presence, allowed the couple to capture their footage, much of it shot at night. 
Watch the film here.

1995: "Life in the Freezer: The Big Freeze" (BBC)

David Attenborough during filming for 'Life in the Freezer'

David Attenborough braves mountainous seas, blizzards, and temperatures of minus 60 degrees as he journeys from the sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia to the South Pole, to uncover the secrets of the Antarctic as part of the series Life in the Freezer.
Watch the film here.

1997: "Natural World: People of the Sea" (BBC)

Another BBC Series program walks away with the Grand Teton Award for People of the Sea. This program tells the story of Newfoundland from a native’s point of view – exploring the history, wildlife, and the modern day dangers of technology and globalization threatening Newfoundlanders’ way of life.

1999: "Vision Man" (Swedish Film Institute)

Utuniarsuak Avike, 87-year-old native Inuit hunter in northwest Greenland, is the star of Vision Man.

Utuniarsuak Avike is an 87-year-old native Inuit hunter in northwest Greenland who has lived through the transition of this peoples’ 4000-year-old culture into a Western equivalent. Now confined to a small apartment, Avike tells of the life that lies behind him: fishing, dogsledding, coexisting with wolves and walruses and the ritual religious hunting of the polar bear. Not only does this vision man share his well-spent life but he also sheds light on a culture steadily eroding in this changing world.

2001: "Mzima: Haunt of the Riverhorse" (National Geographic)

Victoria Stone, Mark Deeble, and sons film up close

The power couple, Mark Deeble and Victoria Stone, once again took home the Grand Teton Award! They were also the first producers to ever win the award for their film Here Be Dragons (1991). The couple spent two years camped with their young children to document the remarkable way in which a family of hippos brings life to crystal-clear African spring. Using cutting-edge diving techniques and developing their own underwater camera system – they took their lenses into the mouth of hippos and crocodiles to document revelatory behavior – new even to science. The result is a film that reveals the intricate pyramid of life that a hippo school supports, and the astonishing and eventually shocking behavior that is hidden beneath the calm surface of Mzima spring.

2003: "Cultured Ape" (Scorer Associates) 

Primatologist Frans de Waal claims that apes share with us the most precious jewel in our evolutionary crown: culture.  This 60-minute film explores the remarkable depth of similarity between ourselves and our nearest relatives – apes.

2005: "Homeland: Four Portraits of Native Action" (Katahdin Productions)

From Alaska to Maine, Montana to New Mexico, Native American activists are fighting the “New Indian Wars” to both preserve their sovereignty and protect Indian lands against disastrous environmental hazards. Nearly all of the Indian nations sit on land threatened by toxic waste, strip mining, oil drilling and nuclear contamination. At a time when 30 years of environmental law is being dismantled, Native Americans are organizing to fight corporations and government.
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2007: "Galapagos: Born of Fire" (BBC)

This opening episode travels with the islands through the fascinating stages of their lives, and reveals how creatures have found the most enterprising ways to get to grips with the restless Pacific outpost. Witness the dramatic eruption of the largest of all the Galapagos volcanoes, Sierra Negra, blowing smoke and ash seven miles in to the sky; Galapagos giant tortoises, the largest on Earth, being groomed by Darwin’s finches; and the magical courtship display of the waved albatross.

2009: "Green" (Tawak)

Green, the star of the 2009 Grand Teton Award winner

Her name is Green, she is alone in a world that doesn’t belong to her. She is a female orangutan, victim of deforestation and resource exploitation. This film is an emotional journey with Green’s final days. It is a visual ride presenting the devastating impacts of logging and land clearing for palm oil plantations, the choking haze created by rainforest fires and the tragic end of rainforest biodiversity. We watch the effects of consumerism and are faced with our personal accountability in the loss of the world’s rainforest treasures.

2011: "Broken Tail" (Crossing the Line Films)

Broken Tail was the most flamboyant tiger cub Colin Stafford-Johnson had ever seen during many years spent filming India’s wild tigers. And then the cub went on the run, leaving his sanctuary, surviving for almost a year where many said it was impossible in the unprotected badlands of rural Rajasthan. Tracking his extraordinary journey, Colin and his soundman, Salim, piece together Broken Tail’s final days, and through his story, uncover stark truths about India’s last wild tigers.

2013: "On a River in Ireland" (Crossing the Line Films)

From PBS - The Shannon is Ireland's greatest geographical landmark and the longest river. It is both a barrier and highway - a silver ribbon holding back the rugged landscapes of the west from the gentler plains to the east. On its journey south, the Shannon passes through a huge palette of rural landscapes; where on little-known backwaters, Ireland's wild animals and plants still thrive as almost nowhere else. For a year, wildlife cameraman Colin Stafford-Johnson lives on the river - camping on its banks, exploring its countless tributaries in a traditional canoe, following the river from dawn to dusk through the four seasons, on a quest to film the natural history of the Shannon as it has never been seen or heard or experienced before.

2014 (Science Media Awards): "Particle Fever" (PF Productions, LLC & Anthos Media, LLC, USA)

As the Large Hadron Collider is about to be launched for the first time, physicists are on the cusp of the greatest scientific discovery of all time -- or perhaps their greatest failure.

2015: "Jago: A Life Underwater" (Underdog Films)

An award-winning documentary about Rohani, an 80-year-old hunter who dives on a single breath descending to great depths for several minutes. Set against the spectacular backdrop of the Togian Islands of Indonesia.

2016 (Science Media Awards): "David Attenborough's Light on Earth" (Terra Mater Factual Studios/Ammonite Films, CuriosityStream, with BBC, UKTV, ABC Australia)

Sir David Attenborough explores the world of bio-luminescence, the often spectacular natural light produced by some creatures. Specially designed cameras reveal nature's leading lights.

2017: "The Ivory Game" (A Netflix Documentary, Terra Mater Film Studios and Vulcan Productions)

Wildlife activists take on poachers in an effort to end illegal ivory trade in Africa. Ivory is a prized status symbol for middle-class Chinese, and poachers in pursuit of white gold are slaughtering African elephants in record numbers. Filmmakers went under cover for 16 months, infiltrating and documenting the deep-rooted corruption at the heart of the global ivory trafficking crisis.

2018 (Science Media Awards): "Laws of the Lizard" (Day's Edge Productions for Smithsonian Channel)

​Few creatures have revealed as many biological secrets about the workings of life on Earth as the backyard lizard known as the anole. Join biologists Neil Losin and Nate Dappen on their yearlong examination of this humble but fascinating creature and its remarkable powers of adaptation. It's a whirlwind journey that takes us from Caribbean rainforests to high-tech labs to the city of Miami, leading to incredible discoveries about the laws of the lizard.

In summary, the Grand Teton Award winners have compelling story lines that explore the complex issues that develop between people and the natural world – uncovering the unflattering side of both of these worlds. Big production companies, like BBC and National Geographic, have taken home quite a few of these awards over the years. However, Grand Teton Awards have gone to independent production companies on many occasions as well, which is very impressive especially when they are running up against veteran, power companies like National Geographic. It goes to show that this competition truly celebrates the best of nature storytelling, no matter the source or the budget that goes into the project.

We can't wait to see who will take home the Grand Teton Award in 2019!