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Paradise after the 2018 Camp Fire in a scene from \u201cStray Embers,\u201d screening at SF DocFest on Sunday, May 31.<\/p>\n
SF DocFest.<\/p>\n
As the Camp Fire roared through Paradise, forcing evacuations in chaotic, bumper-to-bumper traffic, carpenter Brad Weldon stayed behind and picked up his hose.\u00a0<\/p>\n
His bedridden 89-year-old mother, Norma, was not going anywhere, so Weldon and his housemate, Mic McCrary, fought the flames with what they had\u00a0\u2014 including the water from an aboveground swimming pool\u00a0\u2014 to save their home and their lives.<\/p>\n
San Francisco Documentary Film Festival presents \u201cStray Embers\u201d: 4 p.m. Sunday, May 31. $19. Vogue Theatre, 3290 Sacramento St., S.F. \u2022 Available to stream online Thursday, May 28, through June 7. $10. sfdocfest2026.eventive.org<\/a><\/p>\n Then, in the aftermath of the Nov. 8, 2018, conflagration that decimated the Butte County town and killed 85 people, the fifth-generation Paradise resident invited displaced neighbors\u00a0\u2014 and many, many dogs\u00a0\u2014 to share his home.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n That makeshift community that Weldon built is at the heart of \u201cStray Embers,\u201d a project seven years in the making by Erin Brethauer and Tim Hussin, which offers a cinema-v\u00e9rit\u00e9 portrait of a community\u2019s tenacity and survival. It screens Sunday, May 31, at the Vogue Theater, and streams online, as part of San Francisco Documentary Festival, which runs through June 7.\u00a0<\/p>\n Filmmakers Tim Hussin, left, and Erin Brethauer.<\/p>\n SF DocFest<\/p>\n The documentary is an outgrowth of what Brethauer describes as part of the \u201cinitial news blitz\u201d in the wake of the disaster.\u00a0<\/p>\n San Francisco Chronicle Logo<\/p>\n Make us a Preferred Source to get more of our news when you search.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Add Preferred Source<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n In the mid-2010s, she and Hussin had a video column, \u201cThe Regulars,\u201d in the Chronicle, and made their first feature, \u201cLast Man Standing\u201d (2016), about long-term AIDS survivors, under Chronicle auspices. That same year, they struck out on their own to work on other projects as freelancers for hire, which led to them accepting an assignment from the Guardian to make a short film focused on Paradise residents grappling with the Camp Fire\u2019s aftermath.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Weldon was among the subjects of the resulting \u201cParadise Lost: The Town Incinerated by California\u2019s Deadliest Wildfire\u201d<\/a> from 2019. Filmed with his mother and McCrary, he made an impression in the documentary and on Brethauer and Hussin. The Asheville, N.C., filmmakers made 45 trips to Paradise over the ensuing years to more fully explore Weldon and his adopted community\u2019s story.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was this surreal moment of being in Brad\u2019s backyard with all that he had saved,\u201d Brethauer said of their initial visit. \u201cIt\u2019s this intact garden, when everything around his house had burned.\u201d<\/p>\n The filmmakers first capture that spirit in Weldon\u2019s garden, where he transforms a destroyed satellite dish into a birdbath<\/p>\n \u201cHe and Mic were just so welcoming in the face of something that felt so incredibly scary and apocalyptic,\u201d Brethauer continued.<\/p>\n Brad Weldon in a scene from \u201cStray Embers,\u201d screening at SF DocFest on Sunday, May 31.<\/p>\n SF DocFest <\/p>\n \u201cWe also really craved seeing the long-term effects of a disaster like this. After all those news stories go away, what are the people still experiencing?\u201d Hussin added. \u201cWhat is that long arc of healing that communities go through in the face of such a transformative experience?\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The pair was particularly struck by Weldon and his circle\u2019s warm and welcoming nature\u00a0\u2014 \u201cThey felt like family very quickly,\u201d Hussin observed\u00a0\u2014 as well as how they responded to the disaster that upended their lives.<\/p>\n \u201cThey just kept going forward, and they didn\u2019t dwell,\u201d Brethauer said. \u201cThe most amazing part of human beings is their resiliency, and I think we\u2019re both curious about where that comes from and what enhances it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cStray Embers\u201d adds to a robust roster of films that focus on the Camp Fire, among them Bay Area filmmakers Zackary Canepari and Drea Copper\u2019s documentary \u201cFire in Paradise\u201d<\/a> (2019); Ron Howard\u2019s \u201cRebuilding Paradise\u201d<\/a> (2020); Lucy Walker\u2019s \u201cBring Your Own Brigade\u201d<\/a> (2021), in which Weldon also appears; and last year\u2019s fictionalized \u201cLost Bus.\u201d<\/a> There is even a 2020 \u201cThis Old House\u201d four-episode series focused on Paradise residents rebuilding and a 2021 BBC One documentary, \u201cGreta Thunberg: A Year to Change the World,\u201d in which the activist interviews fire survivors.<\/p>\n The Camp Fire remains both the deadliest wildfire in California history and the most destructive, with nearly 19,000 structures burned. An arcing PG&E power line started the fire, but drought conditions related to climate change fanned the flames. Paradise and its neighbor Concow were destroyed, while several other neighboring towns were also damaged.\u00a0<\/p>\n All of that, along with the human drama, created fertile ground for filmmakers.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cAlso, the name, Paradise, I feel like that drew people in,\u201d Brethauer noted.\u00a0<\/p>\n Norma Weldon in a scene from \u201cStray Embers,\u201d screening at SF DocFest Sunday, May 31.<\/p>\n SF DocFest<\/p>\n Weldon and some of the other \u201cStray Embers\u201d subjects will be in attendance with Hussin and Brethauer when the film screens at the Vogue. Some attended the February world premiere at the Big Sky Film Documentary Festival in Missoula, Mont. Even before that, Hussin and Brethauer traveled to Paradise for a private screening last fall in Weldon\u2019s living room.\u00a0<\/p>\n The film moved Weldon to tears.<\/p>\n \u201cIt seemed like he was pretty blown away. I mean, he got to see his mother again, who had<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n passed away,\u201d Brethauer recalled. \u201cI think the film gave them a moment to be like, ‘Wow, we went through all this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Pam Grady is a freelance writer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paradise after the 2018 Camp Fire in a scene from \u201cStray Embers,\u201d screening at SF DocFest on Sunday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":671224,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[2224,36093,88,11337,206,138590,6399],"class_list":["post-671223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-arts-and-entertainment","tag-california-wildfires","tag-entertainment","tag-festivals","tag-movies","tag-movies-and-tv","tag-wildfires"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=671223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671223\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/671224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n
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