Who's the Greenest Filmmaker in Town?

Some of the area’s brightest minds will be showing off their filmmaking talents—and their concern for the environment—at the Greenlight Earth Day Film Festival in Palo Alto tonight.

Now in its sixth year, the Greenlight Earth Day Film Festival is a competition in which local youth and adults submit their own homemade films about what they and others can do to reduce their impact on the environment. Among the finalists in this year’s festival are residents from Los Altos, Palo Alto and Mountain View.

“It was started as a way to get young people involved in thinking critically about what they can do to improve their impact on the environment,” said Brad Sanzenbacher, youth services coordinator for the Media Center in Palo Alto, which founded the annual event. “So, to do that through the medium of filmmaking inspires them to tell that through technology.”

The films are judged by the the , and five finalists are selected from each of the three age categories—High School, Middle School and Open, for adults. The finalists are then screened and awarded prizes at the film festival, which takes place tonight, 7-9 p.m., at the , 4000 Middlefield Road in Palo Alto.

The Cities of and Mountain View are both sponsors of this year’s Greenlight Film Festival.

“We have a very fun crop of quality films this year, and we're excited to meet the filmmakers,” said Brad, who has been helping to judge the films. “We received about 30 submissions from Palo Alto, Mountain View, San Jose, East Palo Alto, Los Altos, and a few other cities in the region.”

Gary McSweeney, a teacher at the in Palo Alto, decided to make a class project out of the film competition, and opened it up to his middle school class for topic ideas.

What came out of it was a very unique four-and-a-half-minute film that touches upon the deeper philosophical reasons behind why the Earth is in trouble. McSweeney said he was very impressed with the critical thinking his students put into the film, rather than just making a film about the usual topics such as recycling, or driving less.

“We decided to get to the root of the problem, from a psychological standpoint. It’s completely illogical that people are fouling the planet. So, I thought, the real root of the problem must be an underlying reason like greed, or something to that effect; that is behind why we do these crazy things to the planet,” McSweeney explained.

So, he opened up the question to his class, asking them, “What is the underlying problem here? Why do we do these selfish, crazy things to the environment? Is it suicide, racism, poverty, war?” he said. “I think if we focus on the deeper issues behind it, we’ll see more of a difference.”

The students came up with several reasons that, if addressed, they thought would make more of a longer-lasting, positive effect on the health of the planet.

“What we really need to work on is compassion, initiative, education, and so forth,” he said. “One student suggested, if we could just educate everyone more, maybe we wouldn’t make such selfish choices.”

McSweeney said, another powerful idea that came out of the project was the need for taking more of a long-term view, in thinking about the future and our impact on the environment.

Grace Chen, a student at in Mountain View, and her partner, Max Martinez from Valley Christian High School in San Jose, also chose a unique theme for their film—alternative energy sources.

“The issues of our limited supply of oil and coal resources, as well as the harmful effects they have on the environment, have been getting a lot of attention in the media and news lately. So, I wanted to look at the resources we have to find a solution to this issue,” said Grace.

Grace and Max traveled far and wide to interview experts in the fields of green technology and alternative energy, including a few from a bio-sciences research facility in Berkeley, and a geo-thermal company in Sausalito. What they discovered, Grace said, gave them hope that a widespread solution to the issue can and will be found, soon.

“With our film, we wanted to not only spread awareness of alternative fuel sources that are out there, but also to let people know that this idea of ‘green technology’ is real, and it’s out there,” Grace added. “It’s not so far-fetched anymore, and it’s being researched and developed right here and right now, in Bay Area communities.”

Grace and Max thought the Greenlight Earth Day Film Festival would be another great way to call attention to the issue.

“We thought it could help show our video to an even wider audience, and maybe it can inform and encourage people to take action and be part of the solution to our energy problem,” she said. “And, to encourage more people to look into alternative energy sources.”

For more information, visit www.midpenmedia.org.