Alumnus’ Wine Documentary Wins White House News Photographers Association Award

Paul Ghusar’s (’21) documentary film “God save Cab Sauv” won third place in the White House News Photographers Association Award student contest.

Ghusar says that getting acknowledged for his work feels good. This is his third award for the film. He also earned a Hearst Awards and College Media Association Film and Audio Award for the film.

The documentary on the wine industry was created for Ghusar’s capstone class. He said he chose the subject because of the lack of depth on the climate change across news publications.

“I was doing research on what was going on in Napa Valley when it came to climate change and the wine industry and there wasn’t that much information about the particular topic,” Ghusar said.

He says his favorite part about creating the documentary was visiting Larkmead Vineyard.

Dan Petrovsky, a winemaker at Larkmead Vineyard helped give Ghusar the clarity he was looking for.

“Hanging out with Petrovsky was very informative, after interviewing him I had a clear vision of what the whole story was going to be,” Ghusar said.

Sachi Cunningham, a documentary filmmaker and Assistant Professor of Multimedia Journalism was also a big part of his journey in creating his award-winning film.

“Every contest Sachi Cunningham has told me to enter in, I won something, so big shoutout to her,” Ghusar said.

The SF State Alumnus is currently in the process of creating a new documentary “about different climate change topics starting with ocean acidification, coastal erosion and wildfires,” Ghusar said.