CUNY Newswire

January 13, 2012 | Lehman College

Nurto Ousmane, a Somali farmer, holds her newborn baby in the refugee camp of Dadaab. She had to sell her farm to get there.

BRONX, N.Y. — Sophia Tewa, a recent graduate of both Lehman College and the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, has won the award for Best Documentary Feature at the Winter 2012 Hollywood Cinema Film Festival for “The People the Rain Forgot.” The film explores the drastic impact of climate change on the agricultural areas of northern Kenya, where once-fertile lands are slowly turning into deserts. No rain has fallen in that area in the past four years, affecting the lives of millions of residents.

“Without rain, most Kenyan communities basically can’t survive,” explains Tewa. “I wanted to raise awareness on this issue and how it is linked to climate change. I think it is important for all generations to know that we are already seeing the disastrous effect climate change has on some of the world’s most vulnerable populations.”

The Hollywood Cinema Film Festival showcases domestic and international films from talented independent filmmakers. Winners of this year’s awards were announced on Jan. 10, and works will be screened on Jan. 18.

A multilingual journalism major at Lehman, Tewa produced the film over the course of six months. While at Lehman, she served as news editor of the student newspaper, completed internships at WCBS News and ABC News, and was a producer – reporter for Bronxnet, a municipal cable access station. In her senior year, she was one of 12 campus video correspondents selected nationwide to report for “CNNU,” a section of the CNN website that reports on news and trends from college campuses, and also interned at the 24-hour cable news station NY1.

She graduated from Lehman with honors in 2008 and as a member of Golden Key Honor Society. In graduate school, she spent a summer as an editorial intern for the “New Indian Express” newspaper in Chennai, India. After earning her master’s in 2010, she worked at WCBS-TV.

Information about the film is available at The People the Rain Forgot website and about the festival at the Los Angeles Cinema Festival of Hollywood website.

Contact: Marge Rice / 718-960-4992