By Wonhee Park:

The Greenlight Earth Film Festival will be held at Cubberly Theater, where the winning filmmaker will receive an award from the City of Palo Alto and named Community Energy Champion. The films will be shown April 19 at 7 p.m.

The Greenlight Earth Day Film Festival highlights movies that seek to educate the public about environmental citizenship and show the power of individuals who help solve environmental crises. This festival is co-sponsored by the City of Palo Alto and the Palo Alto Media Center.

The festival has four categories of film submissions based on age group, including elementary school, middle school, high school and open, which allows contestants to be judged in a mixed group. These top five films in each category will be showcased at the festival. There will be a three-judge panel who will decide the winner and are composed of a student judge, a judge with a background in environment and a judge with a background in films.

This will be the seventh year the festival has been in Palo Alto. According to Brad Sazenbaher, a key coordinator of this event, this annual festival was created by previous Palo Alto mayor, Jim Burch, who had a passion for the environment and wanted to further impact the lives of young adults through the media. “Student film festivals are meant to be a positive experience and a unique way to showcase creativity,” Sazenbacher said.