Student film wins sustainability award

Silent River documents one young woman’s fight, in the face of death threats, to clean up one of the most polluted rivers in Mexico. Over a thousand chemicals flow through the river, but not one company has been fined in the past decade.

The $5,000 cash award includes a screening and Q & A at the National Geographic’s theater in the nation’s capitol. The directors have been invited to Capitol Hill to screen the film for congressmen and staffers to mark the 20th anniversary of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

The 1994 passage of the NAFTA ushered in a new era of lax environmental regulation, prompting many U.S. companies to establish facilities in the outskirts of Guadalajara, Jalisco. More than 70 percent of the 400 companies in the industrial zone do not meet environmental standards set by the Mexican government; 80percent of the companies responsible for the pollution are from the United States and Japan.

Silent River will continue its run on the film festival circuit this spring. So far, the film has won the Best Student Filmmaker award at the Wild and Scenic Film Festival, first place for the Green Planet Award at the Oscar-qualifying Rhode Island International Film Festival, and the Audience Choice Award and Emerging Filmmaker Award at the Pictoclick Film Festival. Wild and Scenic selected it as one of 60 documentaries to make a world tour this year.