With the sun shining and deer quietly nestled on patches of lawn at the wooded, tranquil NASA-JPL complex in the foothills near Pasadena, it’s easy to forget that some of the world’s most advanced research is being conducted—right here in our own back yard—on how to counteract the dark threat brought on by global warming.
A NASA-JPL climate scientist made the global come into sharp local focus when he was asked during a recent panel about the vanishing ice in northern Greenland, the dramatic backdrop for the film Inuk and its story of traditional ways being threatened by global warming.
The Lifetime movie Call Me Crazy: A Five Film, whose overlapping storylines featured an all-star cast portraying people dealing with mental illness, received first place in the Primetime Drama (Major Storyline) category at the 14th annual Sentinel for Health Awards held in Hollywood.
Hollywood, Health & Society Director Sandra de Castro Buffington and HH&S program administrator Chris Dzialo recently traveled to India for the public launch of its global center called The Third Eye, bringing in local writers for a series of panels, classes and storytelling workshops, and taking them on a research trip to explore the kinds of health-related challenges facing young girls and women in a remote village.
“It’s a topic that has had lots of heat,” said Martin Kaplan, the founder and director of the USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center, in his opening remarks at the event held June 27 at the Writers Guild Theater in Beverly Hills. “I hope tonight will not only add light but also the human face—the stories that are so central to what it’s all about.”
Hollywood, Health & Society led a select group of writers on a “Jurassic Park”-style tour of remote Santa Cruz Island off the coast of Santa Barbara to learn about the effects of climate change, wildlife restoration efforts and how to live in a sustainable, off-the-grid environment.
An invitation-only audience was treated to a special screening of “Chasing Ice,” photographer James Balog’s hauntingly powerful 2012 documentary about Earth’s disappearing glaciers, on May 23 at the Writers Guild Theater in Beverly Hills.
Amid all the talk about DNA, double helixes and genetic variations at the Genomes Environments Traits Conference in Boston was a bit of entertainment industry sizzle, as Hollywood, Health & Society Director Sandra de Castro Buffington delivered a featured presentation on inspiring writers and producers to craft storylines that improve health worldwide.
Hollywood, Health & Society Director Sandra de Castro Buffington will talk about “Mainstreaming Socially Provocative Cinema and Television” at the FICCI Frames 2013 conference being held March 12-14 in Mumbai, India.
Hollywood, Health & Society Director Sandra de Castro Buffington will speak about the depiction of immigrants in the media at the Creative Change conference March 5 at Self Help Graphics & Art in East Los Angeles.
