PBS, Discovery Networks Int’l partner on “My Wild Affair”

Realscreen, Kelly Anderson 21st January 2014

Realscreen, Kelly Anderson 
January 21, 2014

Discovery Networks International, Discovery Canada and PBS will air a four-part series on the friendships between animals and humans, from UK prodco Blink Films and Canada’s Newroad Media.

My Wild Affair is a 4 x 60-minute series that uses first-hand testimonies, home movies and TV archival footage to tell the stories of assorted animals, including Chantek, an orangutan raised as a human child, in “The Ape Who Went to College;” and baby elephant Aisha, whose life and death galvanized the fight against poaching in “The Elephant Who Loved Too Much.”

The other two episodes are “The Seal Who Came Home,” about a seal that traveled 200 km to be with its human best friend; and “The Rhino Who Joined the Family,” about a black rhino orphan living in a suburban family home.

The series will premiere on Animal Planet in the UK on February 26 at 9 p.m. Discovery Networks International will air My Wild Affair across its channels in 224 countries and territories, while the series will also air on Discovery Canada’s Animal Planet and PBS in the U.S.

My Wild Affair tells the amazing, personal stories of ordinary people and their extraordinary friendships with animals,” said Helen Hawken, director of production, factual, at Discovery Networks Western Europe. “These heart-warming and enlightening true stories reveal the one in a million encounters between the human and animal kingdoms.”

Blink Films’ Dan Chambers is the executive producer of My Wild Affair, in coproduction with Newroad Media’s Marlo Miazga and Ann Marie Redmond. The executive producer for Discovery Networks International is Helen Hawken, and Bill Margol is overseeing the series for PBS.