- Jul 9, 2025
- 4 min read
Letter from Student Producer, Arian Tomar
For the last three years, I’ve grown alongside the Eco Film & Media Art Festival, a student-led festival dedicated to uplifting emerging student work related to themes of sustainability, climate change, and environmental justice.
Our inaugural festival in the fall of 2022 was my first introduction to the environmental action community at USC and it was also the first time my work had been screened in front of a large, live audience. I shared a tiny, two minute documentary I had made in high school and saw it on the same screen as stunning documentaries with resonant social impact campaigns. From that moment, I hoped I would get to give back to the community I had found in my first months at USC.
Last year, the festival was back for a second time and I screened The Youth Climate Corps BC, a short documentary showcasing how a nonprofit in British Columbia is taking on the climate crisis by paying youth a living wage to support climate action in their hometowns. This film was made in support of a new campaign to acquire provincial funding for Youth Climate Corps BC, creating a more stable source of funding for their impactful programs. I had little hope that anything would come of the film but I was excited to support an emerging leader in Canadian climate action. In April 2024, it was announced that the BC government would allocate $3,000,000 CAD to support the nonprofit.
This year, I was promoted from festival participant, to student producer of the Eco Film & Media Art Festival. I walk in the steps of students Natasha Nutkiewicz and Monty Hughes who have paved the way for student leadership and created an exciting platform that connects storytellers and artists and encourages greater engagement with environmental issues. I also got to support my good friend and engineer, Joshua Jacobs in making his first film which premiered at our festival this year. I’m exactly where I wanted to be three years ago when I was sitting in the audience, seeing my work on screen, getting to uplift student perspectives and create new community. None of this would be possible without the support of the Arts & Climate Collective team or your support as an audience member, student artist, and community member.
Thanks for another tremendous festival and an awesome three years <3
Event Description
Every spring, our team of student producers look forward to organizing our Annual Eco Film + Media Arts Festival. This year, over 120 attendees joined us at our biggest festival to date. We received over 30 projects for festival consideration, which led to the creation of a review panel of 14 artists, filmmakers, and sustainability community members who carefully selected our finalists. After much deliberation, 11 incredible films were selected and screened at one of our USC theaters.
Documentaries are a mainstay of the festival, and this year was no exception, with six of our eleven screened films falling into the nonfiction category. The documentary standout this year was Palmas by Aric Lopez, an interrogation of the palm tree that has defined much of Los Angeles’ public image. The documentary takes a street-level view of this environmental icon, exploring its origins and how it embodies a long history of displacement across Los Angeles.
Our five media art installations captivated audience members in our post-screening reception, where attendees could watch, touch, and engage with the various works. These installations took many forms and covered many topics, from Jake Nicastro’s treeptych of three short films on climate destruction and connection, to Siena Jarrin’s painting the Microscope, inspired by microscopic organisms.
The night ended with a mixer where filmmakers, students, and community members celebrated impactful art and developed new creative connections.
Our festival started as a platform for student filmmakers at USC, many of whom have never had their work screened or hosted publicly. This year, half of our filmmakers and media artists made their debut for a large, public audience. In a first for our Eco Film Fest, we sought out submissions from college students across Southern California — and even some more distant inter-collegiate collaborations. Next year, we hope to engage even more student filmmakers from across the country!
Thanks again to all of our student artists who made this year’s festival our biggest yet:
New Animals – Ellie Schmidt
Fueling the Future – Liam Hoole
Anguilla Anguilla – Ari Williams
The Black Sphere – Miao Hao
The Jurupa Oak – Honor Dodd, Melina Durre, and Sam Fischer, Pitzer College
From Soil to Soul – Ankur Shah, Arizona State University-USC collaboration
Under the Overpass – James Delisio, UC San Diego
Not Their First Rodeo – Benjamin Fischer
Hear Her – Joshua Jacobs and Arian Tomar, Utrecht University-USC collaboration
Phosphenes – Dale McCallum (Password: McCallum2024)
Palmas – Aric Lopez
I accidentally stepped on a flower – Eneos Çarka (Password: luledelenestadium)
Treeptych – Jake Nicastro
My FLESH is on FIRE but At Least I Can Grill My Bacon! – Cameron Knauf
From the Water to the Roots – Morandi Wu
Microscope – Siena Jarrin, Occidental College
You can read more about this year’s festival here:
BlueDot Living (article) – Helping Student Filmmakers Turn Art Into Action
USC Annenberg Media (article/radio) – Eco Film and Media Arts Festival spotlights environmental stories
Daily Trojan (article) – Artists show their green thumb at Eco Film Festival
