WATCH THE TRAILER
LOGLINE
A haunting tip prompts a Los Angeles Times reporter to discover that as many as half a million barrels of toxic waste had been dumped into the ocean, just off the coast of Southern California.
SYNOPSIS
From Pulitzer Prize-finalist Rosanna Xia and Academy Award®-winning L.A. Times Studios, OUT OF PLAIN SIGHT is a cinematic exposé of an environmental disaster lurking just off the coast of Southern California.
Not far from Catalina Island, aboard one of the most-advanced research ships in the world, David Valentine discovered a corroded barrel on the seafloor that gave him chills. The full environmental horror sharpens into greater clarity once he calls Los Angeles Times journalist Rosanna Xia, who pieces together a shocking revelation: In the years after World War II, as many as half a million barrels of toxic waste had been quietly dumped into the ocean – and the consequences continue to haunt the world today.
runtime: 94 minutes
“THE FACT THAT THERE COULD BE HALF A MILLION BARRELS DOWN THERE … WE OWE IT TO OURSELVES TO FIGURE OUT WHAT HAPPENED, WHAT’S ACTUALLY DOWN THERE AND HOW MUCH IT’S ALL SPREADING.”
— DAVID VALENTINE, PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR AT UC SANTA BARBARA
Rosanna Xia - Director, Producer
Rosanna Xia is a Pulitzer Prize finalist and an environmental reporter for the Los Angeles Times, where she specializes in stories about the coast and ocean. Her journalism has inspired new laws and regulations, and her celebrated book, California Against the Sea, received the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award, an American Book Award and a gold medal from the California Book Awards, among other honors. She has been praised for her investigative reporting and narrative storytelling, and her coverage of a toxic dumpsite in the deep ocean has been anthologized in the Best American Science and Nature Writing series.
Daniel Straub - Director, Producer
Daniel Straub is a Los Angeles-based director and producer who has worked in the documentary film industry for more than 10 years. With a sharp eye for stories that give form to environmental racism, injustice in the healthcare system and other insidious issues, Straub has dedicated his career to using film and television as vehicles for revealing systemic problems in order to drive change.
Austin Straub - Cinematographer, Editor, Producer
Austin Straub is an Emmy®-winning cinematographer (The Migrant Kitchen, PBS/KCET) whose work spans the gamut of the industry. They have lensed theatrical-feature films, as well as specials for Disney+ and Apple TV+, and their documentary-style camera operating has been tapped for concert films produced by HBO, Amazon and Apple. Austin thrives in intimate, human stories bathed in naturalistic light, and they are passionate about placing the audience in the heart of the most pressing issues of our time.
James Ellington - Composer
James Ellington is a lifelong musician, composer, producer and music supervisor with an eclectic music palette. He has written music for Disney, the NFL Network and Showtime, among many others, and he has worked with and for a wide range of artists, including Grandmaster Flash, one of the originators of hip-hop.
L.A. Times Studios is the ACADEMY AWARD® Winning television and film production arm of the Los Angeles Times.
Our work is driven by editorial integrity, curiosity and a commitment to innovative storytelling. We come at every project with a smart, holistic approach that leverages all the power, influence, energy and intelligence the newsroom has to offer.
Sypher Studios is a full-service content studio that develops series and feature films that are in the “third lane”— the space where gritty stories can be told honestly.
Gritty & real. Honest & un-veneered.
OUT OF PLAIN SIGHT is represented for sales by Submarine.
Submarine Entertainment is a hybrid sales, production and distribution company run by twin brothers and co-founders Dan Braun and Josh Braun. Submarine has been responsible for the sale of six Academy Award winning documentaries: American Factory, Citizenfour, 20 Feet From Stardom, Man on Wire, The Cove and Searching for Sugar Man. Submarine has recently been involved in the production and sale of multiple non-fiction series, including The Andy Warhol Diaries, The Devil Next Door, Evil Genius, The Keepers, Lenox Hill, Pick of the Litter, and Wild Wild Country, which won the Emmy for Best Documentary Series in 2018.
For distribution inquiries please contact info@submarine.com
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