Student filmmaker Wang Xiaonan walks to the stage to collect the best student film prize for her short movie Beryl's One Week. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Their efforts culminated in a visually stunning outdoor, nighttime fashion gala that saw Kong as well as students and faculty pose in garments made from old banners, netting and discarded plastic bottles, accompanied by the sounds of saxophonist Li Tieqiao, who is regarded by many as one of the best free jazz musicians in China.

Krista McJarrow-Keller, a first-year undergraduate student from New Zealand who helped organize the festival, says she believes art and cultural events are essential to changing the way people talk about environmental and ecological conservation.

"They bring emotion into the conversation," she says. "Too often the environment is discussed in economic, scientific or utilitarian terms, and not in the terms of the homes of generations of people being destroyed, or a species lost forever. These events can actually motivate people to do something, to press issues rather than just argue about them."

The theme for the film festival was Waste Plastics, and the schedule included multiple award-winning works on the subject, including A Plastic Ocean from the Netherlands, Albatross from the United States, and Oceans: The Mystery of the Missing Plastic from France.

To ensure the event had a lasting effect, organizers also promoted The Pledge, which saw almost 100 people sign up to a joint commitment to living more environmentally sustainable lives.

"Art not only stimulates the senses but can be crucial in spreading important messages about the issues facing our world today, and this is especially true when talking about global environmental challenges," says festival director Miguel Rojas-Sotelo, an art historian and professor at Duke Kunshan University.

"This year, our films focused on plastic pollution and the danger it poses to ecology and the food chain, but, by encouraging our festival-goers to sign a pledge to live greener lives, we hope the message will resonate long after the films' end credits roll."