Saving the Earth From Going Down ‘The Drain’ : Movies: From a student video to professional projects, the Aveda U.S. Environmental Film Festival aims to build awareness.

Loyola High School sophomore Matthew Leonetti is so angry that he can’t go surfing in polluted Santa Monica Bay after it rains that he was driven to shoot a video about it for a biology class assignment.

But never did he think that the five-minute video would wind up as part of an environmental film festival opening tonight in Santa Monica.

Leonetti’s video, titled “The Drain,” earned him an A-plus from teacher Paul Picard--and the grade encouraged him to submit it for festival competition among professional-caliber entries.

Now, it’s one of 125 selected from more than 600 entries, said Richard Skorman, program director of the Aveda U.S. Environmental Film Festival.

While “The Drain” may be smaller and more personal than most of the other of the festival’s films, its point of view is no different: Essentially, that man needs to save and restore his home--Planet Earth.

“When it rains, you can’t go into the water because of the storm drains emptying into the Pacific Ocean, and the overflows of raw sewage,” the 15-year-old Leonetti said the other day after class.

He recalled first learning about the pollution problem about three years ago when he went to Malibu to go surfing and the lifeguard told him the beach was closed. “It made me mad because the waves that day were pretty good,” he said.

But as time went by, Leonetti said, he didn’t notice any improvement in the bay’s pollution. And the cause of the problem, he said, “started to infuriate me.” So when it came time to prepare a project for biology class, he opted, in his words, “to kill two birds with one stone.”

Leonetti, the son of cinematographer Matthew Leonetti (“Another 48 HRS.,” “Poltergeist”), said his video has a “dismal tone,” befitting the beaches after the Los Angeles area gets its first rain of each season. “You see some rancid shots, the voice is monotone, and the pictures are dark,” he said. Leonetti’s classmate Steve Hilger did the voice-overs that describe the situation for viewers, and a spokesman for Save the Bay is interviewed.

“The Drain” is scheduled to be shown Sunday at 7 p.m. at Laemmle’s Monica 4-Plex, which, with the Mann Criterion and Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel, is a screening site for the festival.

In all, about 60 hours of film over four days will be screened during the festival, covering the spectrum of environmental issues, from saving the wilderness to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, toxic waste and agriculture.

“To talk about dolphins being caught in nets is one thing,” said festival director Skorman, “but to see it--the screaming of the dolphins--has a different kind of impact.” Such is the potency of the film medium with respect to environmental causes, he added.

Among the films: “From the Heart of the World” (tonight at 9 at the Criterion, 87 minutes), about the Earth’s last ancient, isolated tribe, the Kogi Indians of Colombia; “Power to Survive” (part of programs beginning Saturday, 10 a.m. at the Criterion and 7 p.m. at the Monica, 24 minutes), using rap music, animation and interviews with urban teens about saving their environment; “Cane Toads” (part of an environmental humor program that begins at 9:30 p.m. Saturday at the Monica, 46 minutes), about an Australian toad experiment gone awry; “The Military and the Environment: The Environmental Cost of Nuclear Weapons” (noon, Sunday, Monica), a program of four films.

Tonight’s featured program, consisting of three documentaries, is titled “Innocent Victims: Caring for the Children of Chernobyl,” beginning at 7 at the Loews Hotel. It will be followed by a discussion with anti-nuclear activist Helen Caldicott, among others.

Among other programs: United Farm Workers President Cesar Chavez and former Texas Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower will speak at 2 p.m. Saturday at the Monica on issues of environmental politics; Rainforest Action Network Director Randall Hayes will speak Friday at the Monica, after a 9:30 p.m. program of films about the Earth’s disappearing rain forests.

This is the festival’s second year, but already it has grown to include a number of private and corporate sponsors, after its founding by the Pikes Peak Film Council in Colorado Springs, Colo.

The festival was moved to the Los Angeles area this year, both to attract the city’s large population and because it is a media center, said Jayni Chase, the honorary chair. One of the goals of this year’s festival, she added, will involve the busing of about 6,000 Los Angeles County students to Santa Monica to see environmental films today, Friday, Monday and Tuesday.

For festival information: (213) 285-8685.