An intimate, vérité portrait of resilience, community, and climate crisis in rural Northern California. In the wake of the 2018 Camp Fire - the deadliest wildfire in California history- Brad Weldon, a fifth-generation resident of Paradise, saves his home with little more than luck, some garden hoses and sheer determination. What begins as a personal act of survival soon transforms into a makeshift communal experiment when Brad opens his doors to over 20 displaced neighbors, friends, and their many dogs, creating a sprawling, improvised household. Stray Embers follows this multi-generational household over five tumultuous years.
Set against the backdrop of increasingly frequent and catastrophic wildfires, Stray Embers captures the profound tension between rootedness and retreat in a community navigating the realities of climate change. While some residents rebuild and forge new rituals - burying ashes beneath fruit trees, transforming debris into shelters - others, like Brad’s friend Lenny, seek solitude and meaning in the scorched wilderness, scavenging gold from newly exposed mines.
Filmmaker expected to attend.
Co-presented by SFFILM and the Chronicle.
Playing as part of the 25th San Francisco Documentary Film Festival. Click here to look through Vogue’s program in the fest on Sunday, May 31 and Monday, June 1.