Incandescence

Every summer, wildfires increasingly ravage places around the globe, darkening the skies with thick smoke and reducing communities to little more than ash and debris.

Award-winning directors Nova Ami and Velcrow Ripper (Metamorphosis) weave together immersive on-the-ground footage with first-person accounts from Indigenous Elders, first responders, and ordinary people forced to react to a rapidly evolving ecosystem in the feature documentary Incandescence.

As climate change continues to escalate, full suppression measures have largely failed, leading to bigger, more intense mega-fires. But there is another way. Indigenous knowledge keepers explain that the First Nations people traditionally used controlled burns to regenerate the land. As one woman explains, fire is like a grizzly bear running to stay alive. But instead of fighting this insatiably hungry beast, working with nature transforms fire’s capacity to destroy into a powerful force for growth and renewal.

Following the rhythms of the seasons, Incandescence takes shape from the ancient patterns embodied in fire: destruction, aftermath, rebirth. Many plants and animals have adapted to use fire in their life cycle. Some trees species require heat to release their seeds, while other fire-activated plants make use of the nutrients released in the soil bank to bloom. Honouring the experience of both human and non-human inhabitants, the film documents extraordinary stories of survival and adaptation in the forest mosaic. From the flightpath of bees to an osprey’s aerial perspective, floating over the landscape: the Earth comes back.

Inside this intense and lushly realized cinematic experience, something else begins to emerge. A febrile spirit rising from the ashes with a collective and resilient approach to our mutable future, Incandescence transforms our understanding of fire from destruction and disaster into a kind of profound illumination, lighting the way towards new life and hope.