Arts & Climate Collective Eco Media Festival

Join us for the fourth annual Eco Media Festival presented by the Arts & Climate Collective and SCA’s Division of Media Arts + Practice. The program includes a panel with environmental artists, student film screenings, and media art installations, followed by a networking mixer with light refreshments (first come first serve).

Event Schedule (additional info below):

1pm: Panel with environmental artists

2pm: Music performance and media art walkthrough

3pm: Screening block A

4pm: Screening block B

5pm: Networking mixer

6pm: Event ends

This event is free of charge and open to the public. RSVP is required in order to attend.

This screening will be OVERBOOKED to ensure seating capacity in the theater, therefore seating is not guaranteed based on RSVPs. The RSVP list will be checked in on a first-come, first-served basis until the theater is full. Once the theater has reached capacity, we will no longer be able to admit guests, regardless of RSVP status.

Individuals with disabilities who need accommodations to attend this event may contact artscc@usc.edu. It is requested that individuals requiring accommodations or auxiliary aids such as sign language interpreters and alternative format materials notify us at least 7 days prior to the event. Every reasonable effort will be made to provide reasonable accommodations in an effective and timely manner. Note that accommodation requests received after the designated deadline may not be accommodated.

This program is open to all eligible individuals. USC operates all of its programs and activities consistent with the university’s Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation or any other prohibited factor.

Panelist Information:

Laurel Tamayo is an award-winning filmmaker and impact producer passionate about communicating the climate crisis through film & TV. In her role at Rare’s Entertainment Lab, she supports creative teams in integrating climate-friendly behaviors on screen through consultations and workshops. She also directed the short documentary called “Healing Lahaina,” a deeply personal film covering her family's experience with the 2023 Lahaina wildfire, climate change, and community resilience. She was recognized in Forbes’ 68 Climate Leaders Changing The Film and TV Industry and has been profiled in Teen Vogue. She also authored the foreword for the book "Climate, Vulnerability and Health," published in 2025.

Danny O’Malley is an Emmy-, Grammy-, and James Beard–nominated filmmaker recognized for his work as a producer and director. Over the past decade, he has served as a producer on Netflix’s acclaimed series Chef's Table. In 2025, he received a nomination for the Emmy Award for Outstanding Documentary Series. In 2024, his feature documentary Canary—chronicling the life and work of pioneering climate scientist Lonnie Thompson—was honored with the prestigious Jackson Wild Media Award for Best Feature. Danny is the co-founder of End of the Road Films, a production company dedicated to unexpected projects with a focus on quality storytelling. He also writes about the craft and business of documentary filmmaking in his Substack newsletter, Documentary Demystified.

Maksim Snow is a singer/songwriter, facilitator, and climate communicator. After overseeing the global debut of youth-led mental health startup Force of Nature, he went on to create intersectional environmental education, deliver mental health workshops to hundreds of young people, and produce arts + culture events rooted in sustainability in London, LA, and NYC. Maksim and his work have been featured in the Washington Post, CalMatters, LAist, the 2023 UN Science Summit and more. He was DoSomething's "Generation Future" award winner, former Gen Z advisor for the Climate Mental Health Network, a member of Hinge's "One More Hour" youth advisory council, and is a current member of The Resilience Project's International Youth Advisory Board. His artist project Maksim Snow channels his experiences living, loving, and coming into adulthood with the climate crisis in the background.

Featured Media Art:

클레어 기차

Claire Ko (she/her)

Symbolized by a train, this piece reflects humanity’s departure from Earth’s natural landscape toward an unpredictable future. Glimpses of greenery mark what is left behind, while also offering a sense of hope—a sense that we don’t have to continue down this path.

Save Ourselves

Syante (she/her)

Written after the LA wildfires, Save Ourselves is a moody, cinematic song reflecting on environmental collapse, human apathy, and climate urgency.

Segena Sol

David de Rozas (he/him)

Segena Sol is a multi-dimensional experience that reflects on the connections between the past and present while imagining potential futures in the heart of California's most populous city: Los Angeles.

Cypress

Ivy Ercoli

Shot on expired Kodak Tri-X 400 film, these photos feature Bald Cypresses located along Lake Bradford and Lake Hiawatha in Tallahassee, Florida—a foundational part of the wetland ecosystem and ecological heritage.

Radiant Center

Hans Kuzmich (he/him)

A four-channel sound installation developed at Nida Art Colony on the Curonian Spit. Using radio receivers, hydrophones, and contact microphones, it captures vibrations moving through land, water, and border infrastructure—revealing how security apparatuses and environmental forces co-constitute this disputed terrain.

Playing with Food

Maia Orejudos (she/her)

A whale illustration made with balsamic vinegar and olive oil critiquing Senate Joint Resolution 80 and its threat to Arctic subsistence whaling communities.

Rising Above the Melt

Avidha Raha (She/Her)

This long-term documentary photo project follows young girls entering a remote Himalayan nunnery in Zanskar Valley, Ladakh, to access education. As climate change alters glacial cycles and weather, the nuns bear its impacts firsthand, adapting labor, food storage, and survival practices in an increasingly unstable environment.

Kelp Dreams

Zeynep Abes (Video) and Ellie Schmidt (Audio Design)

Macrocystis kelp is a giant of the ocean, growing over a foot a day from murky depths. These algal ocean forests have held critical habitat for fish, invertebrates, and marine mammals for thousands of years. kelp dreams is a portrait of Southern California kelp forests, woven from field photogrammetry scans and hydrophone recordings. Can immersive digital media visualize the constant movements of the ocean, interspecies dynamics, and our embodied human relationship to them?

Film Screening Block A:

Bubbles

Star Akhom, Olivia Armstrong, Allen Marin, Emily Mishoe, Ashten Royse, Dani Oliver

United States

Middle Tennessee State University

In a world devastated by climate chance, an oblivious influencer livestreams product reviews from her apartment, blissfully insulated from the devastation outside.

Plastic Archipelago

Maximilien Rolland

Canada

UQAM

On a restricted urban island, a 24-hour cleanup performance becomes a collective ritual where art and science explore our fragile connection to the living world.

Depth

Daria Mantsereva

Russian Federation

VGIK

Following the instructions in a mysterious letter, a young man arrives at the coast searching for his origins. Instead, he discovers a strange new world of fish people—why does it feel so familiar?

Society of Fearless Grandmothers

Elia Bongiorno, Samuel Leveille, Karli Korszeniewski

United States

University of California, Santa Barbara

Through wisdom, courage, and grief, a group of activist grandmothers reflect on humanity’s fractured relationship with the environment. By spreading ideals, breaking down stereotypes, and forging community, they fight in the name of a better future.

Starwhale

Rose Philander

United States

Pitzer College

In a post-apocalyptic world, the sea and sky have merged into seaspace. Humans attempt to understand new nonhuman species with their "astroaquanaut" initiative. They will not destroy the natural world again.

Hydra on the Horizon

Curran Seth

United States

University of California, Santa Barbara

A community of activists, fishermen, and longtime residents haunted by decades of oil spills rises once more as Sable Offshore threatens to restart operations on a corroded pipeline in the Santa Barbara Channel.

Embroidering the Abyss

Fikri Al Murtaky

Indonesia

Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia

Human ambition reshapes the earth through towering structures and endless infrastructure, concealing the wounds carved into the land. Our global capitalist system dictates progress as the domination of nature—a trajectory that leads not to balance and preservation, but to excess and destruction.

Debt Collector

Jesse Pinho

United States

University of Southern California

A climate research institute director hosts a webinar to celebrate a climate activist's work. But the activist has other plans for their call…

Film Screening Block B:

How to Love in a Mass Extinction

Anya Jiménez

United States

University of Southern California

Riddled with climate anxiety, a woman explores her grief for both her late mother and the planet in a dramedy.

The Bear Beneath

Olivia Marie Hille

United States

University of California, Santa Barbara

A century after the California Grizzly was erased, the bear only remains on the state flag - until a bold question arises: will California resurrect its lost icon or leave it in the past?

Kaalindi: An Urban Legend

Saloni Dhingra

India

Indian Institute of Art & Design

Personifying the Yamuna River as a grieving woman wandering Delhi, Kaalindi blends past and present to explore memory, environmental loss, and longing.

The Hare and the Pheasant

Okki Poortvliet

Netherlands

Nederlandse Filmacademie - Amsterdamse Hogeschool voor de Kunsten

Following a hunting group in the Dutch countryside, The Hare and the Pheasant reveals hunters’ relationship to death while touching on rural neglect, and the idea that no untouched nature remains in the Netherlands.

Crossing the Divide

Talia Frank

United States

University of California, Santa Barbara

Crossing the Divide explores how roads fracture wildlife habitats, investigating current wildlife crossings and highlighting their promising potential to restore movement patterns and support ecosystem resilience.

Native

Matias Racca, Lucía Cortez

Argentina

Universidad Nacional de Córdoba

Martín, a Pampas fox, sees his home threatened by the rapid advance of deforestation.

A Place for the Flock

Collin Snyder

United States

Syracuse University

Passionate conservationist, John Crump, works on the preservation of heritage breeds of duck, chicken and most notably, the Cotton Patch Goose.

Roper

August Koskoff, Chloe Heath, Rachel Ma

United States

Pitzer College

William Roper, a musician who lived in Altadena, lost his home to the Eaton Fire. This documentary captures how he processes this catastrophe.