Rosanna Xia is an author, documentary filmmaker and environmental reporter for the Los Angeles Times, where she specializes in stories about the coast and ocean.
Xia was named a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2020 for explanatory reporting, and her celebrated book on climate change adaptation, California Against the Sea, received the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award, a gold medal from the California Book Awards, and a Great Reads from Great Places 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.
Her most recent project, the feature documentary film Out of Plain Sight, is a cinematic expansion of one of Xia’s most shocking environmental exposés. The film was selected as SLAMDANCE’s 2025 opening night film, and it has won numerous film festival honors, including the audience award at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival and the Berkshire International Film Festival.
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.
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The feature documentary film, which Xia directed and produced with Los Angeles-based filmmaker Daniel Straub, world premiered at DOC NYC and is currently on its film festival run. In addition to receiving the audience award at Santa Barbara and in the Berkshires, the film has resonated deeply with audiences at the Miami Film Festival, Cleveland International Film Festival, and many others across the country.
Two major environmental film festivals also recently awarded the film with their highest honors: The Shared Earth Foundation Award at the DC Environmental Film Festival and the Best Feature Film Award at the International Wildlife Film Festival, where the jury cited the film as “a gripping and urgent exposé that brings long-buried environmental crimes to the surface with cinematic precision and investigative depth.”
To catch the film’s most up-to-date festival screenings and announcements, please see the film’s official website and the film’s Instagram page.