Midpen Media Center: GREENLIGHT PHOTOS & AWARDEES

Wes, Louise, Vaness, Annie, Sid & Peter

I have to say, after last night's screening of the top fifteen films in this year's Greenlight Film Festival, I'm not too keen on the word "winners" -- all 15 films were flat out winners and deserving of being in the finalists circle. What a challenge to be a judge this year! Still, it was a job done with great skill by 9 judges pulled from the Green community, the Media Center staff and volunteers and young filmmakers. Thank you to our fine judges:

Cathy Keys - UNA Film Festival

Catherine Martineau – Canopy

Jim McCarthy - Creek Stewardship Volunteer

Susi Merhar - Acterra

Catalina Morales-Liu - Independent Producer

Arianna Tamaddon - Student

Austin Tamaddon - Student

Kathy Ushiba - Concentric Media

Laura Wolfson – Keller - Student

The finalists and the ultimate awardees were:

Middle School Category:

If Everyone by Gary McSweeny (Palo Alto)

The Consequence and the Solution by Ezer Isai Angeles (Mountain View)

Wanted by Carter Lee, Bryan Young, and Daniel Furgy (Mountain View)

127 Minutes by Charlie and Henry Badger (Palo Alto) - WINNER

Eating Locally by Emily Zhang and Margaret Rosenthal (Palo Alto)

High School Category:

Reversing the Trend by Caroline and Jonathan Armer (Mountain View)

Bay Area Energy Solutions by Grace Chen and Max Martinez (Mountain View)

5 Ways to Keep Earth Beautiful by Sarah Miller, Nathan Bills, and Jake Koval (Palo Alto)

Running Out of Time by Emily Wong (Palo Alto) -WINNER

How Big is Your Footprint by Madeline Dahm (Palo Alto)

Open Category (all others including elementary school and adults):

Patrick Dougherty’s Palo Alto Sculpture by Farrah Plummer (Palo Alto) -WINNER

Where Are The LEED-ers? by Dicky Yan (Mountain View)

On the Rise by John Tupper (San Jose)

Spread Too Thin by David Simon (Los Altos)

Take a Ride on the Wild Side by Jim Skinner (Palo Alto)

And many thanks to our Master and Mistress of Ceremonies: Peter Drekmeier (former Mayor, founder of Acterra) and Louise Pencavel (Media Center Producer). And thank you to Mayor Sid Espinosa for his words of encouragement -- reminding all filmmakers young and old about the transformational power of film! And it was great to see former Mayor Jim Burch and Chairman of the Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce Dan Dykwel (and Media Center Board Member) in the audience as well.

Finally, I wasn't on crew last night at Cubberley, but we had the usual fabulous staff coverage spearheaded by Production Manager Karen Adams, Director Doug Smith, Camera Operators: Francisco Del Rosario, Lupita Segura and Jeff McGinnis, Stage Managers Annie Folger (our Executive Director), Brad Sanzenbacher (our Youth Services Coordinator and Greenlight Organizer), and finally last but never least Wes Rapaport, Paly Senior, award winning filmmaker and Media Center Youth Staff.

We hope Midpeninsula-based filmmakers will start planning their entries for next year's Greenlight NOW!


Dan Dykwel from the Chamber and Mayor Sid Espinosa

Tune in and watch all the entries and the finalists on our stations and out website. Here is a link to the TV schedule. Don't forget anytime a program is scheduled to run on our channels it is available to watch right off the streaming page.