L.A. Times and Sypher Studios to Premiere Environmental Documentary Feature ‘Out of Plain Sight’ at DOC NYC
Directed by Pulitzer Prize-finalist Rosanna Xia, the feature film is an unprecedented expansion of one of The Times’ most shocking exposés.
The Los Angeles Times’ most ambitious documentary film yet will world premiere in November at DOC NYC, the nation’s largest documentary film festival. The feature-length film “Out of Plain Sight” is a cinematic expansion of a series of haunting reports by environmental journalist Rosanna Xia, who broke the story that as many as half a million barrels of toxic waste had been quietly dumped into the ocean decades ago, just off the coast of Los Angeles.
In a first for The Times, the reporter, Xia, serves as the film’s director alongside Daniel Straub, a documentary filmmaker based in Los Angeles. The film is an independent co-production from L.A. Times Studios and Sypher Studios, produced by Xia, Straub and Emmy® Award-winning cinematographer Austin Straub.
Watch the trailer for “Out of Plain Sight”
(Cinematography by Austin Straub. Music by James Ellington.)
“This film project has transcended what I thought was possible for environmental journalism,” said Xia, whose investigative reporting has jolted Congress, inspired scientists and deepened the way people today understand the marine environment.
“I have spent years unraveling a toxic mystery that the ocean had buried for generations, and this story was begging to be told more visually – with a more profound exploration of how the horrors of our past continue to affect us and our future,” said Xia. “It is an honor to build on the work of Rachel Carson’s ‘Silent Spring,’ and to immerse the audience in a world that I have spent years getting to know.”
“The language of the film emerged within the first few hours of filming,” said Straub, who has been riveted by this story since Xia’s first article in 2020. “Rather than have Rosanna be our main ‘on-screen talent,’ sitting in a chair doing a retrospective interview, it was clear to me that she also needed to be directing the film with me.
“It was surreal for my brother Austin and me to join her process as we saw the journalism continue to unfold through her eyes – connecting the dots across so many silos of science and bringing us into spaces that are inaccessible to most documentary filmmakers. The trust she has built with her sources, and the empathy that she brings to connecting the human and more-than-human world, has made this film both cinematically beautiful and journalistically precise,” said Straub.
Through the film, viewers are launched on a gripping journey as Xia searches for answers at sea, in the lab and across breathtaking environments up and down the California coast. Immersive soundscapes by Gigantic Studios and a captivating score composed by James Ellington give voice to our deeply interconnected ecosystems, and a trove of unearthed archival footage reinforces the unsettling reality that forever chemicals can span multiple generations, outlive our collective memories – and eventually come back to haunt us.
“‘Out of Plain Sight,’ as the name suggests, is about something appalling that we’ve unknowingly coexisted with, for decades,” said Bedatri D. Choudhury, a features programmer for DOC NYC. “Produced by the L.A. Times and helmed by Rosanna Xia, an environment reporter at the publication, along with director and producer Daniel Straub, it is an exhaustive report on an environmental catastrophe that would’ve perhaps remained unknown had it not been for Xia.
“The film does an excellent job balancing a journalistic tone and reportage with an engaging visual language that makes for a watch that is both enlightening and alarming,” said Choudhury. “DOC NYC, with its history of championing bold storytelling and innovative documentary filmmaking, is the perfect festival for the film’s premiere.”
“Out of Plain Sight” will screen as a DOC NYC world premiere Saturday, Nov. 16, at 6 p.m. and again on Monday, Nov. 18, at 9 p.m at the Village East Cinemas by Angelika. A Q&A with filmmakers Rosanna Xia, Daniel Straub and Austin Straub will follow each in-person screening. DOC NYC is also offering an online option, with the film available to screen on-demand Nov. 17 to Dec. 1. Tickets are available via docnyc.net.
The film is an acquisition title at the festival. Executive producers for L.A. Times Studios are Chris Argentieri, Shani O. Hilton, Maurice James and Leslie Lindsey. Executive producers for Sypher Studios are Jens Jacob and Jason Pamer.
Recent documentary film projects from the Los Angeles Times include “Hollywood’s Finest,” “The Colorado River in Crisis” and “Repowering the West,” as well as the documentary short film series L.A. Times Short Docs, which is presented by Canon U.S.A., Inc., the official imaging provider of the L.A. Times. “The Last Repair Shop,” an L.A. Times Short Doc, won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short earlier this year, adding an Oscar to the Times’ collection of Pulitzer Prizes, Emmys and various other awards for its journalism.
