ACES Presents The William A. Nitze Community Lecture: Forty Years Of Wildlife Filmmaking with Sir David Attenborough

Forty Years Of Wildlife Filmmaking with Sir David Attenborough

Presented by Alastair Fothergill | Producer and Co-Founder of Silverback Films

About Alastair Fothergill:

Alastair is the co-founder of Silverback Films and has been at the forefront of natural history programming for over 30 years. After studying zoology at the University of Durham, he joined the BBC Natural History Unit in 1983, where he worked on diverse programs including ‘The Really Wild Show’ and ‘The Trials of Life’ with Sir David Attenborough. He produced ‘Life in the Freezer’ before serving as Head of the BBC Natural History Unit for six years. Alastair eventually stepped down to focus on hands-on filmmaking, serving as Series Producer for ‘The Blue Planet’ and ‘Planet Earth,’ and Executive Producer for ‘Frozen Planet.’ His cinematic credits include directing ‘Deep Blue’ and ‘Earth,’ along with many Disney nature titles. Since co-founding Silverback Films in 2012, Alastair has executive produced many films and series. His work extends to Netflix’s first major natural history series, ‘Our Planet,’ and co-directing the film ‘David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet.’ A Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society and 2012 Gold Medal recipient, Alastair holds several honorary doctorates and won the 2017 BBC Grierson Trustees’ Award. In 2019, he was awarded an OBE for his services to film.

About Sir David Attenborough:

Sir David Attenborough is a legendary biologist, natural historian, and broadcaster who has served as the voice of the natural world for over 70 years. Raised in an academic family on the grounds of Leicester University, his lifelong passion for nature began with boyhood fossil hunting before he earned a scholarship to Cambridge. Attenborough joined the BBC in the 1950s, where he helped launch Zoo Quest, one of the earliest natural history series. He later transitioned into executive leadership, serving as the Controller of BBC Two and Director of Programmes for the entire network, where he was responsible for introducing a diverse range of landmark content across science, arts, and drama.

In 1972, Attenborough returned to full-time program-making to create the seminal Life on Earth(1979), a series that set a global benchmark for the scale and scope of natural history documentaries. This was followed by his definitive “Life” collections and the globally acclaimed “Planet” series, including The Blue Planet, Planet Earth, and Frozen Planet. Known for his pioneering use of cutting-edge technology—from infrared filming to 4K cinematography—he has received every major industry award and was knighted in 1985. Attenborough later narrated Our Planet, an eight-part series that debuted on Netflix in 2019. That year the BBC also broadcast his documentary Climate Change—The Facts, in which he warned that the failure to act could lead to “the collapse of our societies.” David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet (2020) was described as his “witness statement.”