Since it first took flight last year, Bermuda-made nature film Rare Bird has been picking up prestigious awards at festivals around the world.

Rare Bird filmmaker Lucy Spurling told the Royal Gazette on Thursday she was excited about the film’s latest catch, a special jury award at the prestigious Worldfest in Houston, Texas.

“That was great,” said Miss Spurling. “I was surprised we did that well. They told me I would be getting something, but I couldn’t go to the festival because I would be away.”

To receive the special jury award, the film had to first be nominated for one of the festival’s top awards. Although she didn’t win one of the ‘grand awards’ it was still an impressive achievement because Worldfest Houston is the third most competitive film festival in North America.

Rare Bird has also been screened at the Santa Barbara Film Festival, the Sedona Film Festival, the Washington DC Environmental Film Festival, and the American Conservation Film Festival. It also won several awards at the International Wildlife Film Festival in Missoula Montana, including finalist in the conservation category, honourable mention in the ecological presentation of a species category, and Honourable Mention in Ecological Presentation of a Species.

“Rare Bird isn’t your typical wildlife film,” Miss Spurling said. “There aren’t a lot of cahows eating their prey or anything like that, so it is quite different from what you would see on television or at a lot of the wildlife film festivals. But it has a real personal tale, which a lot of people relate to. So we have also played in a lot of festivals that aren’t necessarily about wildlife.”

And Rare Bird is reaching beyond the United States to the rest of the world. It will be shown at a film festival in New Zealand in July.

“That will obviously take the reach of the film all the way to the other side of the planet,” said Miss Spurling. “The reason they were interested in it is that they have a lot of similar birds that are facing extinction. That is why it would be of interest to an audience in New Zealand.”

Festival organisers in New Zealand said they thought Rare Bird told an amazing story that had universal appeal.

“It is about discovering an extinct bird that had been gone for so many years,” said Miss Spurling.

“It is also about the dedication of one man, David Wingate, and the ability of an individual to truly make a difference in a way that many people don’t conceive of. Saving the cahow has been his life’s work, and he has done an incredible amount with his life. He has done what most people would think would be impossible. So that is the appeal.”

Rare Bird will also be screened next month at the Harvard Museum of Natural History in Boston, and will be shown to school students in the United States.

The filmmaker is currently working to cut the film from 80 minutes to 52 minutes to better fit a broadcast format.

“Unfortunately, the things that I had to cut were often the things that I really liked, but weren’t necessary to move the story along,” she said. “I had to cut the story about Pipsqueak the baby Cahow, because it was at the end, and delaying the ultimate ending. Cutting it actually gives the film perhaps more of a life.”

However, Miss Spurling said it didn’t spell the end of the 80 minute version. Organisations that wanted the longer version could still have it.

She admitted that when she first started making ‘Rare Bird’, she never thought of all the business aspects that would come later, after the film was launched.

“The beauty of independent film is that you don’t think about it that way,” she said. “But now with my next film I will be thinking along those lines.”

She said when she first started she saw just finishing it as an achievement in itself.

“But the whole life of the film starts after it was launched,” Miss Spurling said.

“That has been a learning curve for me. Now there is a lot of research you have to do in terms of festivals and distributors who would be interested in such a topic. For my next film, hopefully, I will know where that journey will take me. But then again, it will be a totally different film with totally different people who will be interested in it.”

Her next film, The Lion and the Mouse, will be a historical film about the relationship between Bermuda and the United States, going back to colonial times.

“It is obviously very topical now with the 2007 anniversary in Jamestown, Virginia,” she said. “It goes right up to World War II, so there will be a lot in there.”

She hopes to have the Lion and the Mouse available for the 2009 anniversary of the settlement of Bermuda. Her aim is to shine more light on Bermuda’s role in global history and politics, especially with the formation of the United States.

Miss Spurling is currently in the fundraising and research stage for this new film. So far, The Lion and the Mouse has received some funding from The Bank of Bermuda Foundation. Miss Spurling has done a little bit of shooting, but she hopes to be doing most of her interviews in the next couple of months while the weather is nice.

“Fundraising doesn’t get any easier the second time around,” she said. “I hoped it would be easier. Unfortunately, I don’t think so. I have gotten a lot of no’s from potential donors, but I have also gotten some yeses.

“It is a process of really putting it out there and convincing people that it is worthwhile, as much as all the other causes are worthwhile. I think people get inundated with requests.”

She said Al Gore’s Oscar winning film ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ has actually helped to pave the way for other environmental films like ‘Rare Bird’.

“At the Santa Barbara Film Festival they gave an award to Al Gore for his film and work on global warming,” she said.

“The Santa Barbara organisers said that was actually one of the reasons they programmed Rare Bird. They were looking for films that had the same sort of topic, ‘global warming’.

Rare Bird shows how we can make a difference. Gore’s film will do a phenomenal amount of good for global warming, and the visibility of these stories, which for many years have been swept under the carpet.”

Copies of Rare Bird are available in Bermuda at a number of locations including Animal & Garden House, Godet and Young, Double W, Leisure Time, the Bookmart, the Bermuda Institute for Ocean Sciences (BIOS), The Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute (BUEI) and the Aquarium for $35. There is also a study guide at www.rarebirdfilm.com. For more information, contact Miss Spurling at afflarefilms@mac.com.