By Joshua Mellars
NATAS SF Governor
Northern California Public Media recently featured the work of local NATAS student award and scholarship recipients as part of the PBS station’s Bay Area Bountiful environmental series.
Comprised totally of works by Bay Area students Julian Jordan, Pedro Cota, Kristen Hwang, Max Brimelow and Miki Katoni, this “Student Environmental Film Festival,” aired on Monday, November 25 at 7:30 PM on PBS station KRCB.
In the “Student Environmental Film Festival,” Julian Jordan’s “The Last Straw” looks at the damaging effects of plastic pollution in the oceans and then follows student activists’ efforts to help mitigate the growing environmental problem. Jordan is the recipient of the San Francisco/Northern California NATAS chapter’s Regional Student Production Awards for Excellence for Long Form Non-Fiction. He attends the Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts.
Pedro Cota and Kristen Hwang’s film, “Grow Rules,” explores the environmental impact of marijuana production in Mendocino county and the concomitant consequences of new environmental regulations on growers. In a second film, entitled “Border Air,” Pedro Cota investigates the increased health risks to southern California residents brought about by emissions from long lines of idling cars and trucks waiting to make the San Diego/Tijuana border crossing. Cota and Hwang are students at the University of California Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.
Finally, Max Brimelow and Miki Katoni’s “Tracking SF’s Coyotes from the Presidio to Bernal Hill” examines the Presidio Trust’s work to track San Francisco’s coyote populations. The film then goes on to examine the challenges being faced as local residents increasingly encounter their new neighbors, the urban coyotes. Max Brimelow, a student at the University of California Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, received the San Francisco/Northern California NATAS chapter’s $5,000 Louise Jorjorian Memorial Overall Excellence Scholarship in 2019. Miki Katoni is also a student at the University of California Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.
Following a very positive audience reception to Northern California Public Media’s recent “Student Environmental Film Festival” episode, the PBS station has plans to produce a Bay Area Bountiful student film festival episode annually.
Northern California Public Media operates PBS affiliate KRCB in the North Bay and public television station KPJK in the South Bay.
Bay Area Bountiful airs on KRCB at 7:30 PM on the last Monday of each month.
Click here to watch Bay Area Bountiful: Student Environmental Film Festival.