VIDEO: Okanagan-shot wildfire documentary will premiere at local theatres in March

Nova Ami and Velcrow Ripper live in the beautiful coastal community of Gibsons, BC.

Virtually every summer, they’d watch as their little town of 5,000 people became enveloped in smoke, sometimes for days and weeks at a time.

As documentary filmmakers, Ami and Ripper reflected on what they could do to add to the conversation around climate change.

The result was Incandescence, a documentary filmed over several seasons in the Okanagan, mainly featuring the White Rock Lake and McDougall Creek fires in 2021 and 2023.

“Incandescence explores how megafires impact our ecosystem and how communities living on the interface between forest and civilization can better protect themselves against hydroclimate whiplash,” a press release about the film explains.

“The filmmakers 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.”

Ami and Ripper’s work has already been showcased at film festivals and it will now make its debut where it was shot with a series of screenings around the Thompson-Okanagan in March.

• March 7 - The Paramount Theatre in Kamloops (7 pm)
• March 9 - Falkland Community Hall in Falkland (6 pm)
• March 10 - Vernon Towne Theatre in Vernon (2:45 pm and 6:45 pm)
• March 11 - Landmark Grand 10 in Kelowna (6:30 pm)

Each date will feature a question and answer period with Ami and Ripper after the screening.

Incandescence is produced and distributed by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) and will be available to stream for free across Canada on the NFB website later this year.

Ahead of the Thompson-Okanagan screenings in March, Ami and Ripper joined NowMedia video host Jim Csek to discuss the film, which you can watch in full below.