My Garden of a Thousand Bees is nominated for an Emmy® Award for Outstanding Nature Documentary and wins IMPACT DOCS Award for Outreach

Chevy Chase, Maryland (July 28, 2022) — HHMI Tangled Bank Studios in association with The WNET Group, Passion Planet and Ammonite Films is proud to announce the News and Documentary Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Nature Documentary for My Garden of a Thousand Bees. This inspirational and revelatory film has garnered audience and media praise for its heartwarming story and stunning cinematography. It has also earned the Audience Award from the AFO Film Festival, the Jury Award from the Wild and Scenic Film Festival and the Outstanding Achievement Impact DOCS Award from IMPACT DOCS. In addition, it has been shortlisted for a Grierson Trust British Documentary Award.

My Garden of a Thousand Bees follows acclaimed wildlife filmmaker Martin Dohrn as he closely observes the wild bees in his urban garden in Bristol, England while locked down during the coronavirus pandemic. Filming with one-of-a-kind lenses he forged at his kitchen table, Dohrn catalogues more than 60 different species, from Britain’s largest bumblebees to scissor bees the size of mosquitoes. Over long months, Dohrn observes how differences in behavior set different species apart. He eventually gets so close to the bees he can identify individuals by sight, documenting life at their level as we have never seen it before.

Since its premiere on Nature PBS on October 20, 2021, My Garden of a Thousand Bees has been seen by millions around the country on PBS, though local screenings and at film festivals.

Inspired by My Garden of a Thousand Bees and informed by leading entomologists, HHMI Tangled Bank Studios and Nature PBS developed and launched the #PlantWildflowers national campaign with twin goals of highlighting the importance of native bees and other pollinators and empowering audiences to create pollinator habitats in their communities. The campaign worked from the simple premise that through actions as fun as planting wildflowers and as easy as preserving garden debris year-round, anyone anywhere can create important new habitats for local bees.

The core of the effort was a massive partnership with close to 300 public libraries, 30 conservation organizations and festivals, and five key PBS stations. From October 2021 through August 2022, these partners have hosted nearly 600 events, including screenings, seed plantings, bioblitzes, science education workshops, community organizing webinars and other pollinator-related events in 48 states and have distributed native wildflower seeds to plant more than 1.8 million square feet.

“We are honored that this beautiful film, and the incredibly talented filmmakers who made it, are being recognized by The National Academy of Television,” said Sean B. Carroll, head of HHMI Tangled Bank Studios. “We are also proud of the IMPACT DOCS recognition for the important outreach work being done around the film to protect pollinators and shine a light on the important role they play in our natural world.”

The Documentary Emmy® Awards will be announced on Thursday, September 29, 2022, at 7:30 p.m. EDT at the Palladium Times Square in New York City. The ceremony will be streamed live on the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences website.

For more information about My Garden of a Thousand Bees and the #Plantwildflowers outreach campaign, please visit mygardenofathousandbees.com.

About HHMI Tangled Bank Studios

HHMI Tangled Bank Studios is a mission-driven production company that crafts exceptional films where science is a lens for making sense of our world, while inspiring awe and wonder. Celebrating its 10th anniversary, the studio, a vision of biologist and acclaimed author Sean B. Carroll, is uniquely positioned to shine a light on some of the most significant scientific challenges and breakthroughs of our time. Recent films include Emmy Award-winners The Serengeti Rules and The Farthest – Voyager In Space; Emmy-nominated Nature’s Fear Factor; Peabody Award winner Inventing Tomorrow; Ric Burns’ critically acclaimed documentary feature Oliver Sacks – His Own Life; and the 2022 Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winning and Cannes D’Oeil d’Or Award-winning documentary feature All That Breathes. To extend the reach and impact of each film project, the studio undertakes educational and public outreach efforts in partnership with mission-driven organizations. For more information, please visit WWW.TANGLEDBANKSTUDIOS.ORG.