21 Students Win National Documentary Honors

Twenty-one Poly High School students recently earned top awards for their self-produced documentaries in the national 2023 C-SPAN StudentCam competition.

StudentCam is an annual video documentary competition that encourages students to think critically about issues affecting their communities and nation. This year, students were asked to produce a five to six-minute documentary exploring the theme, "If you were a newly elected member of Congress, which issue would be your first priority and why?"

Among the top winners of this year’s competition was a team of freshmen students from Poly. Townsend Kato, Jeremiah Estrada-Ramos and Jacob Churchill won the second-prize award for their documentary, “Reviving the American Dream,” on affordable housing. The students were among 16 teams from across the country to earn the second-prize honor which comes with a $1,500 cash prize. The students also received congratulatory video messages from Long Beach Unified School District Superintendent Jill A. Baker and Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson.

Two additional freshmen student teams brought home top honors with their third-prize wins. Siri Chang, Isabelle Idian and Karlo Evangelista won for their documentary “Kelp Forests;” and Teodor Misic, Soli Nickerson and Brendan Chaparro won for their documentary “Nuclear Energy: Implementation During Crisis.” Both teams will receive a $750 cash prize.

Among honorable mention winners were Chloe Schmidt for “Environmental Equality in an Unjust World;” Kayla Nguyen and Avery Peck for “The Blue Abyss;” Ruby Tejeda and Mikkaela Rose Arceo for “Wake Up Long Beach;” Benjamin Jenkins and Noah Chun for “The War to Save Small Businesses;” Sarah Nghiem and Emily Tan for “America’s Arms;” and Mateo Gomez, Skyler Johnston-Volk and Julian Wherry for “Wetlands: A Disappearing Lifeline.” Each team will receive a $250 cash prize.

This year, the 19th annual StudentCam competition had nearly 3,000 student participants and received over 1,500 entries from 40 states, Washington D.C. and Abu Dhabi. The 150 winning videos can be viewed at studentcam.org.