Local student film nominated for award at film festival

Two Yuba Environmental Science Charter Academy students had a short film they created – based on an environmental science fair project – nominated for Best Middle School Film at the All American High School Film Festival in New York City, according to Louise Miller, principal and superintendent of the school.

Seventh graders Honor Giardini and Elizabeth Ergo did their sixth-grade science project on palm oil deforestation and decided to adapt the project into a short film as part of the “next steps” portion of the project.

The project asks students to pick an environmental issue, define a problem and try to solve it. The issue Giardini and Ergo picked was how to stop palm oil deforestation.

Videography and photography instructor Radu Sava helped Giardini adapt the project into a script and helped produce, shoot and edit the film.

“It was fun writing the script,” Giardini said.

Giardini, Ergo and some other students acted in the 10-minute film that starts with a conversation among friends about what snacks they want to eat and leads to a discussion about what snacks contain palm oil and the harm it does to the environment.

“It was fun and kind of tiring,” said Giardini on the process of making the short film.

Sava encouraged the students to have a strong antagonist in the movie who would question why palm oil products were harmful to the environment. Interspersed with the conversation among the friends are statistics about palm oil deforestation and photos of species affected by the issue.

Giardini and Ergo were able to go to New York City to attend the festival, where their film was shown at the AMC Theater in Times Square. While their film did not win, it was viewed by celebrity judges including Kristen Stewart, John Legend, John Oliver and Brittany Snow, according to Miller.

“It was a cool experience,” Ergo said.

Miller said Giardini and Ergo were the first-ever students to turn their project into a short film at the school, but she expects more students to follow in their footsteps.

Courtesy photo/radu Sava Honor Giardini, left, and Elizabeth Ergo in a still from their short film “No Palm Oil,” calling companies about palm oil in their products.