The Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival invites everyone to this free community screening of

INCANDESCENCE (directed by Nova Ami & Velcrow Ripper, 2024, 104 mins.)

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 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. 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. Honouring the experience of both human and non-human inhabitants, the film transforms our understanding of fire from destruction and disaster into a kind of profound illumination, lighting the way towards new life and hope.

No pre-registration is required. All are welcome.