A documentary tracking the western monarch butterfly's collapsing migration will screen twice during the Newport Beach Film Festival, which runs Oct. 15 through Oct. 22.

"Western Monarch Butterflies: Protecting Our Pollinators," directed by Santa Rosa filmmaker Ian Nelson, plays Saturday, Oct. 17 and Wednesday, Oct. 21 at the 27th annual festival. Nelson will take questions from the audience after the Oct. 17 screening, the festival announced on X.

The film follows the monarch's yearlong migration across California, Oregon, Nevada, Utah, Idaho and Arizona, according to a UC Berkeley event page for the documentary. Nelson documented the butterflies' overwintering sites and the communities working to protect them after witnessing the population's steep decline firsthand.

The Xerces Society's 29th annual Western Monarch Count, released in January, recorded roughly 12,260 monarchs across 249 sites during the peak period in late November and early December 2025. That was the third-lowest tally since counting began in 1997. Western monarchs numbered in the low millions in the 1980s.

"Western monarchs are in serious trouble. The migration is collapsing," Emma Pelton, senior conservation biologist at the Xerces Society, said in the organization's Jan. 29 announcement of the count results. "We must move quickly to safeguard existing monarch habitat … or else we risk losing one of North America's most incredible natural phenomena."

Nelson partnered with the Monarch Joint Venture on the project. The organization connected him with conservationists across the western states and helped with fundraising, according to a Monarch Joint Venture page about the film.

The festival will screen more than 100 feature films and 250 shorts from 21 countries, Patch reported. The event draws more than 50,000 attendees to Newport Beach each year.

Gregg Schwenk, the festival's CEO and executive director, said Sept. 15 that the goal each year is to bring "remarkable stories, bold voices and audiences" together.

Specific screening times and venues for the documentary had not been posted as of Oct. 4. Tickets and the full schedule are available at newportbeachfilmfest.com.