Sports broadcaster and television host Angela Sun has traveled to Midway Atoll in the middle of the Pacific Ocean to see the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in person. Over a period of eight years, the UCLA alumna created the documentary “Plastic Paradise: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch” to separate fact from myth about the notorious collection of trash.
Sun’s self-described passion project will be the first of four environmental documentaries featured at the second annual “Green Screens: An Environmental Film Festival” at UCLA, hosted by the Graduate Students Association’s Sustainable Resource Center. Every day from Tuesday through Friday, “Green Screens” will highlight a specific environmental issue and display a corresponding film in the James Bridges Theater at 7:30 p.m.
“The environment is something that shouldn’t be relegated to just ‘green-y’ people,” Sun said. “Because we all live in it, we should be aware and take care of it.”
Katie Zeller, a fourth-year environmental science student, helped with “Green Screens” last year and returned this year as the film festival’s assistant manager.
“I took an environment class that sort of widened my eyes, and I realized this problem is much bigger than I realized and I wanted to do something about it,” Zeller said.
Zeller organized Tuesday, Thursday and Friday’s events while Charlotte Will, a third-year business economics student, spearheaded Wednesday’s itinerary.
Tuesday is focused on the issue of plastic, presenting “Plastic Paradise” and a Q&A with Sun. A lover of the ocean, Sun said she is personally concerned with trash in the sea because she surfs, paddleboards and scuba dives. Curiosity motivated her to create the feature-length documentary on the mystical garbage patch.
“It’s really easy to gloss things over in news articles and magazines and have misinformation,” Sun said. “So I’ve always strived to be journalistically sound in whatever I do.”
Recycling, Sun said, has become a way to pacify consciences, but no amount of beach cleanups will end the initial problem of consumption. She said she wanted her film to convey to viewers that even though they throw garbage out it never goes away, but lasts forever even if it’s used just once.
“I want to present to them the idea of what goes around comes around,” Sun said. “It’s a crazy idea to think that almost every single piece of plastic ever created on this planet is still here.”
“The E-Waste Tragedy,” directed by Cosima Dannoritzer, is a documentary from Barcelona and will be screened Wednesday. Will, co-coordinator of UCLA E-Waste Campaign, said the movie gives a global perspective of the hazards of e-waste.
“The issue with e-waste is a lot of times our electronics are disposed of improperly,” Will said. “So they get shipped to (developing nations), where the people there are left to deal with them in their landfills.”
Will said children rummage through landfills and break electronics in search of valuable pieces made of gold and copper. She said the documentary depicts children in Ghana, foraging in dumpsites and ripping apart cords and computers, which can lead to cuts, tetanus, thyroid cancer and chemical exposure.
“(It’s) kind of (an) undercover mystery of how these companies are getting away with it. It’s completely illegal to send your electronics to another country for disposal, that doesn’t really make sense,” Will said. “So the movie tries to answer how they’re getting through those loopholes.”
Following “The E-Waste Tragedy” showing, Julia Bluff will hold a Q&A. Bluff works for iFixit, which Will described as an organization that approaches the e-waste problem differently. Instead of encouraging disposal of broken technology, Will said iFixit helps repair technology by providing manuals of popular electronics and selling tools and parts on its website.
Tessa Verhoef, a graduate student in public health and co-director of the Sustainable Resource Center, said “Green Screens” will continue Thursday with “México Pelágico,” which aims to spread awareness of marine biodiversity in Mexico to protect sharks and other animals from slaughter. Friday’s film, “Growing Cities,” is about the possibilities of urban agriculture in cosmopolitan cities. The Q&A speakers for these two programs will be the producer Jorge Hauser and the screenwriter Andrew Manbouquett of each show, respectively.
Through “Green Screens,” Verhoef said she hopes both North and South Campus students can get together and start a conversation about the impact they make daily.
This year’s festival will expand from last year’s to accommodate more people from backgrounds other than environmental science, Will said.
“I think documentaries are a great way to get messages across because not only do they expose a problem, but they also really inspire you to be part of the solution,” Will said. “I’m a very firm believer that sustainability is making our world a better place.”