We think that plastic is washed up, and last Friday October 23, 2009 we had the opportunity to rasise the awareness of an audience of 200 people that joined us at the James Bridges Theater on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles, for this film series on plastic pollution.

The evening started off with a short introduction by PPC co-founders Lisa Boyle, Dianna Cohen, Manuel Maqueda and Daniella Russo, followed by a screening of the trailer of Bag It!, a film by Susan Beraza about the global production, use, and disposal of plastic bags and other plastics. The audience loved the fast-paced trailer with subtle touches of humor.  We can’t wait for this independent production to come out and succeed.

Next on the screen was a sneak preview of footage captured by Bill Weaver and Jan Vozenilek during Midway Journey, a trip to Midway Atoll by five media artists led by photographer Chris Jordan, to document the effects of plastic pollution in the central pacific.  The demo showed Chris Jordan struggling with his feelings as he captures horrific images of dead albatross chicks filled with plastic pollution, and hinted at the different layers of metaphor illustrated by this environmental tragedy.

After that was a segment from National Geographic’s Strange Days on Planet Earth, an award-winning PBS series, hosted and narrated by Academy Award nominee Edward Norton. Strange Days is a production of Plastic Pollution Coalition Member organization SeaStudios Foundation that first aired in the spring of 2005, and was the first major production to highlight the spiraling problem of plastic pollution in the oceans, on land, and inside of our bodies.  Strange Days fact-finding tone, akin to a mystery film, grips the viewer from the fist moment and takes him in a mission to uncover, clue-by-clue, explanations to the multiple ramifications of the plastic pollution problem.

Next was our feature presentation for the night: Tapped, a documentary about the bottled water industry from director and Plastic Pollution Coalition Advisor Stephanie Soechtig.  Stephanie and her production team mates introduced briefly the film on stage. Tapped took the audience on a fascinating and shocking journey of discovery through the many layers of problems directly connected to bottled water:  climate change, dependance on oil, threats to water rights and public health and, of course, plastic pollution.  An absolutely essential film that everyone should watch.

After the show, filmmaker Bill Weaver from Midway Journey joined PPC cofounders Lisa Boyle, Dianna Cohen, Manuel Maqueda and Daniella Russo, on a panel for a session of Q&A’s.  Anna Cummins founder of Bring Your Own and member of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation also joined the panel briefly to talk about her latest projects.  A very active participant in the discussion was musician and Plastic Pollution Coalition supporter Jackson Browne, who joined us for the entire evening.

Is Plastic Washed up? a Film Series about Plastic Pollution, was made possible by the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, Monkey Business, UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, and the UCLA Institute of the Environment, with additional support from the UCLA Education for Sustainable Living Program.

Thank you to everyone who helped make this event a success!