The Santa Clarita Valley Eco Alliance held its first-ever Eco Film Festival at College of the Canyons on Saturday, aimed to generate awareness, open discussion and solutions for the future on current environmental issues.
The festival was a joint project created by the local Eco Alliance chapter in collaboration with a dozen local nonprofit organizations. The event aimed at educating guests about environmental awareness and shedding light on how humans are affecting the environment.
The six-film documentary lineup covered various topics of discussion such as mass plastic consumption, pollution of oceans, fast fashion and its effects on the environment, and endangered species hunted for sport.
The films selected were viewed by members of the coalition alliance and although each film shared unpleasant raw footage, it also offered solutions, said Cher Gilmore, facilitator of the festival.
For some viewers it was hard to witness and learn about the issues, said Gilmore. But at the end of each film students and community members in attendance came out more self-aware and actively thinking about how they could change their habits to become positive contributors to the environment moving forward, she added.
“It makes it worthwhile,” Gilmore said.
Sixty people were present during the first half of the festival and more attendees filled the rooms for the second half, most of them being COC students.
Gilmore’s goal with the festival was to “make people aware of the results of their choices every day. What they buy and throw away,” Gilmore said. “If we can just make individuals aware, that will make a big difference, education and motivating people to do something.”
Just like many attendees on Saturday, Gilmore was influenced to make a change in her life and be of service to help with environmental issues after watching the documentary film “Chasing Ice” directed by Jeff Orlowski. The documentary follows nature photographer James Balog and his efforts to publicize the effects of climate change.
“In their time lapse photography, you could see the glaciers disappearing. I saw that and I thought, ‘I’ve got to do something,’” she said.
Since then, she has been a member of the Citizens’ Climate Lobby Santa Clarita chapter where she and other volunteers are working toward legislation for reducing carbon emissions.
SCOPE (Santa Clarita Organization for Planning and the Environment) was present among the other organizations sharing about their work in the local area and connecting with others passionate about the environment and preserving it as best as they can.
SCOPE board member Lynne Winner has been with the organization for five years and has worked on allocating funds for the wildlife corridor near Highway 14, advocating to keep the Santa Clara River clean and on occasion fighting the Chiquita Canyon Landfill over its air quality violations, she said.
Although her efforts to help the environment have had progress, the issues they face are “never stopping,” Winner said. “We make these volleys towards protecting the river and the trees, but it seems like it never stops. It’s ongoing,” she said.
Katelyn Abalos and Jelsey Guillermo, two COC students and members of the Hands on Earth club on campus, were student volunteers on Saturday helping attendees find the locations of the rooms where the films were played.
At the Hands on Earth club, they work on outdoor group experiences focusing on fostering awareness of the local biodiversity by cleanups, said Abalos.
They both wanted to be of service during the event and watch films that would help them learn more about the environment and how to help, they said.
The free film festival had an encouraging turnout for the first of its kind and they hope to continue expanding it in the future, said Gilmore.
