A film featuring an animated Cumbrian red squirrel explaining how trees can help with flooding and climate change has won an international prize.
Wood You Believe It claimed the IPST Education Award as part of the Goethe Institute’s Science Film Festival 2025.
This year, more than 1,500 films from 110 countries were submitted to the festival, and 123 films were selected for competition.
The festival has a global audience of over 500,000, with these films being used in primary and secondary schools and shown in 23 countries across Asia, Africa and South America.
Cadi Catlow, director of Wood You Believe It, said: “Making this film was an absolute joy for me because it combined two of my personal passions – wildlife and research!
“Twiggy the Red Squirrel was built as a life-sized, anatomically-correct puppet with a huge amount of attention to detail, though her face was gently worked into a slightly cartoonish direction around the eyes and mouth to help with the animation.
“Her cheerful, expressive voice actually belongs to a real expert working in the field, and the character animator used this as a great foundation for adding bags of extra personality through physical performance.
“The filming was done by a small crew of fabulous people, all committed to sharing the important information around flooding, climate and protecting our natural habitats for future generations. I hope you enjoy watching it as much as we enjoyed making it!”
The short film is one of a series of four Creature Comforts-style animations, created to show how natural flood management can help protect homes, businesses and farms and assist in the fight against climate change. They are the result of an Environment Agency-funded collaboration with the Cumbria Wildlife Trust and Cumbria Innovation Flood Resilience.
Annabel Rushton, RSPB people and partnerships manager at Wild Haweswater and voice of Twiggy said: “It’s absolutely incredible that the film has won this international award.
“The film has been around the globe this year, including at Annecy Film Festival, which is like the Oscars for animations, and the UK’s most prestigious Manchester Animation Festival, so winning this Education Award in Thailand is the icing on the cake of a fantastic year.
“I’m so proud of this little red squirrel sharing such an important message far and near.”
The Environment Agency’s David Kennedy, who was the scriptwriter and producer for the film and the voice of the character Gregory the Woodpecker, said the first series of films creation process began during Covid.
He said: “I had an idea of how to reach the public to explain natural flood management during lockdown which was to create a series of simple and engaging animated films to tell our story.
“I wrote the films over a few months, by which time I was working on the CiFR project. My aim was to try and make the films as impactful as possible in the three to four minutes we had.
“The overall impact of these films has been really heartening for me and all my colleagues who contributed their knowledge and experience; we’re all really proud of what we’ve achieved, and it’s terrific to recognised by such a brilliant festival.”
