On April 24, the Citizens Environmental Council (CEC) hosted its seventh annual film festival in partnership with the Burlingame Environmental Club (BEC) and the Social Impact Filmmaking Club of the Nueva School (SIFC). This is the second year that these groups have partnered together to host the festival, and students from across San Mateo County were invited to share their films about an environmental topic of their choice.

The preparation for the event started in the fall with monthly meetings between the participating organizations. These meetings gave students from Burlingame and Nueva not only the opportunity to connect with each other but also the chance to hash out the details of coordinating a festival. One element students were tasked with was finding locally-sourced snacks for the intermission. Sophomore and BEC co-president Alex Rivas emphasized the connections she was able to make with the other students while working on the film festival.

“I think [collaboration] is really nice and helpful. It allowed me to connect with people outside of school, but then it also helps bring a different viewpoint,” Rivas said. “Our club focuses on environmental topics so we put emphasis on that, but then [SIFC] focuses on making good films.”

As competition judge and advisor of the BEC, physics teacher Thomas Bennett also sees value in collaboration between different groups of people.

“In order to tackle a lot of these environmental concerns that we have, we have to work as a community and not just with the people that we know and that we’re familiar with,” said Bennet. “So interacting with people at our school, interacting with the local community, interacting with other schools in the area, really helps build those bonds to tackle these environmental issues.”

Ethan Lee, a junior at Crystal Springs Uplands School, won the high school category and enjoyed the push to combine social activism and film-making. His film “Threads of Change” focused on the effects of fast fashion and featured interviews from experts and consumers about their thoughts on the fast fashion industry.

“I think [the festival] was a really valuable experience for me especially because in the process I learned so much about not just what’s bad for our planet, but also about myself as well,” Lee said. “Like how I can make change, even as someone who thought originally I couldn’t be an activist. So the process of making the film really just teaches you a lot about yourself and what you’re capable of and how much you can actually say and get through with just a five-minute video.”

When CEC members Shirley Lee and Eileen Kim first founded the event in 2018, they merely wanted to get students involved in the fight against climate change. But after observing the excitement and participation around the film fest, they’ve added an annual Bay Area Social Impact Filmmaking Conference in partnership with the BEC and SIFC. And people are noticing their work: they were recently recognized with the Jefferson Award and featured on KPIX-TV along with the BEC and SIFC. Sophomore Kairah Maqsood, who is also co-president of the BEC, expressed her gratitude to the founders for their work.

“I just really want to emphasize how amazing Shirley and Eileen are. They just won the Jefferson Award, the news covered it and it’s just a big thing because of how great their work is. And they’re the ones that really put together all of this from the start,” Maqsood said.