Sacramento State professor wins national Emmy Award for climate documentary
Kathy Kasic hiked to glaciers, camped on Greenland’s expansive ice sheet and braved the most challenging weather conditions she had ever filmed in to produce her documentary, The Memory of Darkness, Light, and Ice.
At a ceremony May 28, the Sacramento State professor’s film won the national News & Documentary Emmy Award for Outstanding Science and Technology Documentary. Funded by the National Science Foundation, the film investigates evidence that Greenland’s ice sheet collapsed in the past and asks what that reveals about the planet’s future.
“I wasn’t expecting to win and I felt so grateful just to be there for the evening. And so, the fact that we won was an amazing honor,” director-producer Kasic said.
An international collaboration between 17 academic and scientific institutions, The Memory of Darkness, Light, and Ice was nominated in a competitive category against productions from NOVA, National Geographic Documentary Films and Netflix.
The film traces the story of Camp Century, a secrete U.S. Army facility constructed beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet during the Cold War to support plans for deployment of nuclear missiles. When scientists working at the site drilled through about a mile of ice, they recovered sediment from under the ice sheet. Forgotten for decades, the sediment later served as evidence of a previously ice-free Greenland. Now, scientists are using this discovery to better understand climate change and the planet’s future.
“I’ve been told the film allows people to truly understand climate science in a way that has not been easy to understand before. I hope this film, in combination with others, helps people see we need to listen to the science, let go of the political problems we’ve created and try doing something different for our planet if we want to continue to live the way we’re living on it today,” Kasic said.
Kasic, who runs the film program at Sacramento State, had 10 student filmmakers on her team — including seven from the local campus. She said these students organized footage, shot scenes, created illustrations and traveled with the crew. In her Emmy acceptance speech, Kasic thanked the students and her entire team.
“Professor Kasic shows how faculty can involve students in real-world experiences that make a difference internationally,” said Jenny Stark, chair of Sacramento State’s Department of Communication Studies, in a statement. “We are very proud of Kathy, our students, and everyone who helped share this important story with audiences everywhere.”
Earlier, the film earned the Best Environmental Filmmaking Award at the Wild & Scenic Film Festival and the Best Feature Documentary Award at the Raw Science Film Festival in New York City. It has been screened at the U.S. Capitol, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Columbia University, NYU Tisch School of the Arts and institutions across Europe and Latin America.
It is available on Amazon Prime Video, iTunes, Fandango, YouTube, Vimeo, and cable television platforms in the U.S. and Canada. It is also being distributed internationally and has been translated into French, Spanish, German and three Greenlandic dialects.
Up next, Kasic is working on a film about the American River ecosystem. On this project too, she has taken on student interns from Sacramento State.
“The students are always teaching me,” she said. “Being able to teach students in a classroom allows me to always be learning new things, not just about the field but also about what’s interesting to them. I want to teach them how to bring out their own voice and I find a lot of inspiration from seeing how they see the world.”
