Reflecting on 2024
Beautiful Memories, New Beginnings.
Goodbye 2024, and hello 2025! It was another beautiful year - thank you, our community, for your engagement, love and support. And while we’re here, we’d just like to take a moment to reflect back on some of our big moments of 2024..
We have the first married man + dad within the ReWild team! Ali Daynes, co-founder of ReWild has become a husband and a father, alongside his loving wife, Lee - welcome to the world beautiful Flo!
2. Gareth won a film award!! He was the cinematographer, director and editor for “Restore Africa: Natural Fighters for Nature” for the Global Evergreening Alliance, which has won the ‘Short Documentary, International’ award at the 2024 Big Syn International Film Festival - the world’s largest sustainability film festival. The film was also screened on the big screen at Piccadilly Circus in London! To the rest of the incredible team involved here - Mattea Dale Webster, Ben Melle Pama, Sally Armitage, Katerina Koteska, Rachel Kyozira, Norah Namono and the RESAf team on the ground, and the team at Climate Asset Management.
3. We tallied up our freelancer ecosystem to 200 freelancers (!!) in our network from all around the world! Sign up to our ecosystem here to get within our database for future work opportunities. We are constantly expanding our freelancer ecosystem, building a community of talented local filmmakers; while reducing carbon emissions where we can.
Some of the amazingly talented individuals and freelancers we had the pleasure of working with in 2024 - Carter Kirilenko, Luke Nelson, Matthew Blair, Frank Papushka, Julian Culverhouse, Marc Galver and Jean-Michelle Hill. We love you and your creative vision!
4. ReWild’s company culture is growing and thriving - with the usual Monday Lunches together; FreeWild Fridays, and an epic Summer Sessions at Porcupine Hills - where we reconvene at the end of the year, and talk about some goals and ideas for the new year together. We feel so lucky to work alongside family.
5. Josh Ihlenfeldt and Benji Cullinan have both become an integral part within ReWild’s core team. Both so dedicated to their craft, Josh on filmmaking and Benji on editing - it’s been awesome to work with such legends of the game!
6. Ben produced and directed his own film for the CNN Academy! The Plant Shepherd, aiming to bring greater awareness to the Richtersveld as an ecological wonder, acclaimed as the most biodiverse arid landscape on the planet. Climate change, plant poaching and illegal mining threatens this ecosystem. Watch how the Plant Shepherd, Pieter van Wyk, is fighting for the Richtersveld. Filmed and edited by the talented David Nivison.
7. We worked with dream client WWF UK! Land for Life in Kenya and Tanzania was a highlight of the year, and we are lucky enough to still be working with the WWF UK (edits in progress, watch the space)...
8. We have continued to work with our dream client, BBC Storyworks - nearly 45 films! Here are our two favourite films of the year with them:
Bridges to Prosperity in Uganda - the project is using the power of AI technology to identify key areas of movement in remote regions, and build bridges that cross rivers and floods, helping people safely reach their destinations.
SeaTrees / Sustainable Surf in Kenya, restoring mangroves in the coastal communities here - which are crucial for building economic resilience; offering carbon sequestration and biodiversity benefits.
9. We have expanded our productions with BBC Storyworks to new countries in Europe and Canada! We filmed in Spain and Portugal; and Greece and Canada productions are set to happen in February!
10. We built a fun campaign to bring awareness to the declining populations of African Penguins with this fun post!
11. Looking Ahead to 2025 and beyond
For 2025, we will be putting in time to focus on creating full campaigns. We’re going beyond just storytelling. We’re extending ourselves to all designs of communication - writing, media, websites, distribution - to enable us to truly lift some stories off the ground and focus more on impact. It will be a learning process, but we’re really excited for the challenge! If you have been thinking about creating an impact campaign - get in touch with us, we would love to chat!
Wild Regards,
Team ReWild