Out of Plain Sight: Film Screening & Discussion with Rosanna Xia

Out of Plain Sight: Film Screening & Discussion
Speaker: Director and L.A. Times Reporter Rosanna Xia
Friday, April 3, 2026
6:00pm to 8:30pm
Reception to follow
Irvine Auditorium
Middlebury Institute of International Studies
499 Pierce Street, Monterey, CA 93940

In-person event, registration requested, but walk-ins welcome.

"Haunting, enraging, and a vital addition to environmental storytelling."
-- Scott Z. Burns, producer of An Inconvenient Truth

From the Los Angeles Times and Pulitzer Prize-finalist Rosanna Xia, 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 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.

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, a gold medal from the California Book Awards, and a special citation from the Library of Congress, 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. Xia’s latest project, the feature documentary "Out of Plain Sight," which she directed and produced, is a cinematic expansion of one of her most haunting environmental exposés. The film has received numerous film festival honors, including the Audience Choice Award at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival and the Jackson Wild Media Award for Best Investigative Film.

5:00pm Check-in/registration opens
5:30pm Doors Open
6:00pm Welcome and Introductions
6:15pm Film screening begins
7:45pm Q&A with Rosanna Xia
8:30pm Reception

The McCone Building is located at 499 Pierce Street, Monterey, CA, 93940, on the campus of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. Attendees should enter through the glass doors from Pierce Street, and the Irvine Auditorium is located inside to the left. View the campus map.

This is a free event, open to the public. Registration is preferred, but walk-ins are also welcome.

Parking is available in any Middlebury Institute campus lot after 5 p.m., no parking permit required, no fee. View the campus map. Free parking is also available on the street (time limits on surrounding streets end at 6 p.m.).

The sponsor and host of this event is the JEDI office. The goal of the Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (JEDI) office at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey is to be a reminder for the Institute’s mission “to educate professionals to advance understanding, promote peace, and drive change in pursuit of a more just world.” JEDI promotes Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion as the Institute’s core values.

This event is co-hosted by the Center for the Blue Economy. The Center for the Blue Economy is a research center at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, that provides economic and policy analysis to support the development of a robust and equitable blue economy for the 21st century. The Center uses the World Bank’s definition of the Blue Economy: the sustainable use of ocean resources for economic growth, improved livelihoods and jobs, and ocean ecosystem health.

Contact Rachel Christopherson at the Center for the Blue Economy at (831) 647-4183 or [email protected].

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