Vanessa Berlowitz
Co-Founder / Chief Creative Officer
Vanessa co-founded Wildstar Films in 2018 after 25 years of working for the BBC's Natural History Unit where she led large teams on series such as Frozen Planet and won key business including Planet Earth 2.
After studying Human Sciences at Oxford University, Vanessa joined the BBC's NHU where she produced and directed 15 films for 5 award winning landmark series – Planet Earth, Frozen Planet, David Attenborough’s Life of Mammals, Land of the Tiger and The Human Animal – as well as for long-running strands The Natural World and Wildlife on One and documentary series Animal People and Postcards from the Country. Awards include Emmys, BAFTAs, RTS’s, TCAs, Jackson Wild awards and Wildscreen Pandas. She is also a BAFTA and Grierson nominated Director.
She travelled from the North to the South Pole with Sir David Attenborough whilst producing and directing the opening episode of Frozen Planet, a series for which she won a Primetime Emmy as the Series Producer. Vanessa became an Executive Producer at the BBC for Great Bear Stakeout, Life in the Air and Planet Earth 2.
After leaving the BBC, Vanessa worked as a Consulting Executive Producer with Nutopia helping to develop the series vision for One Strange Rock. She then moved to Botswana with her husband, Mark and son, Cameron, to live in the bush for 2.5 years where together they made Elephant and a companion documentary, In the Footsteps of Elephant for Disneynature
In the seven years since Wildstar was founded, Vanessa has collaborated closely with the teams to deliver six major series for National Geographic and Disney+, including Queens, America the Beautiful, America’s National Parks, Epic Adventures with Bertie Gregory, Animals Up Close, and Underdogs with Ryan Reynolds.
She is currently overseeing production on the second series of Underdogs, a Disneynature film slated for release on Earth Day 2025, as well as Sentient—a major landmark series for a leading global streamer, produced in partnership with Darren Aronofsky and Protozoa Films.
Alongside these flagship projects, Vanessa also produced and co-directed Tiger for Disneynature and co-produced its environmental companion documentary Tigers on the Rise, both of which premiered on Disney+.
Since Fremantle acquired Wildstar Films in 2022, Vanessa has used sale proceeds to launch the Wildstar Academy to continue the training of female and diverse wildlife film makers that she started with Queens. She is a regular mentor for National Geographic’s Field Ready Program and is highly committed to helping train and support more film makers from underrepresented groups to build a successful career in wildlife.
