World premiere of Nova Ami and Velcrow Ripper’s Incandescence at Planet in Focus in Toronto. As wildfires ravage the planet, this NFB feature doc offers extraordinary stories of survival and adaptation.

October 3, 2024 – Toronto – National Film Board of Canada (NFB)

An immersive cinematic experience that transforms our understanding of wildfire, Nova Ami and Velcrow Ripper’s National Film Board of Canada (NFB) feature documentary Incandescence will have its world premiere at the 25th Planet in Focus International Environmental Film Festival in Toronto, which takes place this year from October 15 to 20.

Wildfires are burning with increasing intensity around the world. Following the rhythms of the seasons, Incandescence weaves stunning on-the-ground footage with extraordinary stories of survival and adaptation. Made in collaboration with firefighters and impacted communities, the film takes shape from the ancient patterns embodied in fire: destruction, aftermath and rebirth. From the flightpath of bees to an osprey’s aerial perspective, floating over the landscape: the Earth comes back.

Incandescence will premiere on Saturday, October 19, at 6:30 p.m. at the Paradise Theatre, followed by a conversation with filmmakers Ami and Ripper.

More about the film

Incandescence by Nova Ami and Velcrow Ripper (105 min)
Produced and executive produced by Shirley Vercruysse for the NFB’s Western Documentary Unit in Vancouver.
Press kit: mediaspace.nfb.ca/epk/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. Incandescence

weaves 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.

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 tree 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.

About the directors

Nova Ami and Velcrow Ripper are award-winning documentary filmmakers who have collaborated for over a decade on projects exploring our relationship to the climate emergency: Incandescence, an immersive, experiential feature about wildfire; the award-winning Metamorphosis, a feature documentary about change in this time of climate crisis; and Planet 911 (in post-production) navigates how to survive, thrive and transform the climate emergency from the perspectives of women at the forefront of the crisis. Their solo documentary work includes Nova Ami’s Say I Do and Secrets, and Ripper’s Scared Sacred, Fierce Light and Occupy Love.

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