Award-winning documentary filmmaker Jason-Spingarn-Koff, the Knight Chair of Climate Journalism at UC Berkeley Journalism and a UC Berkeley Journalism alum who studied with legendary Documentary Professor Emeritus Jon Else, will premiere his new film “The Coral Rescuers” on July 28 at The Woods Hole Film Festival. The film follows frontline researchers who are racing climate change to save the last of Florida’s coral reefs — with footage from a devastating heat wave in 2023 to today’s urgent rescue efforts. Andrea Lampros (’97) spoke with Spingarn-Koff (’01) about the film and what it’s like to go from a Netflix documentary executive to a director in the trenches. Spoiler alert: “It’s much easier to give notes than to follow the notes.”
What ignited your passion for working on environmental films and climate change?
It started when I was a grad student at Berkeley when I made a thesis film — a science documentary called “Robofly” about people trying to make a robotic fly and the implications for society. It sounds kind of strange, but it allowed me to explore the wonder of the natural world and the power of innovation and engineering. These are themes that have stuck with me over decades. I carved out this deep passion and I did a great deal of work in that intersection of science and technology in society, as an independent producer and director and working on shows like NOVA. Then when I was at The New York Times [as a video journalist, commissioning editor and founder of Op-Docs] and at Netflix [as Director of Original Documentary Programming], I worked on films and series about a wide variety of subjects, but a recurring theme was about the natural world and the environment, including climate change and oceans. I saw the kind of impact this work can have on the public, and I felt like this was something I want to do more of and devote myself to.
