California Landslide

FILM SUMMARY

In 2017, the largest coastal landslide in California’s history collapsed on the Central Coast of California. During a series of extreme weather conditions, Big Sur residents Dana Richardson and Sarah Zentz and their beloved dog, Anika, were forced to flee their home. CALIFORNIA LANDSLIDE is a historical documentary revealing a deeply personal investigation of a global issue — the social and environmental impact of natural disasters on nature, animals, and humans.

DIRECTOR STATEMENT

For six years, we called Big Sur our home. Little did we know, we would become the closest residents to the massive landslide. We began filming California wildfires in the summer, followed by intense rainstorms in the winter, which triggered the mass earth movement in the spring of 2017. Our unique access enabled us to document the active landslide zone behind the closed California State Route 1. The earth around our house showed significant movement, disrupting the roads that we relied on to escape, and ultimately trapped us behind rock slides for weeks. The highway at Mud Creek in Big Sur was buried in an already significant sized mudslide by the time we were forced to evacuate. We were fortunate to have made it out before the catastrophic collapse. The landslide covered a quarter of a mile of the highway with thirteen acres of dirt and debris. The highway was rebuilt directly on top of the landslide. Over a year later, when the highway finally reopened, we returned to the site of the landslide to witness the transformed landscape. After being displaced by a natural disaster, we decided it was time to relocate from Big Sur and begin rebuilding our lives.

As the impacts of climate change increase around the world, millions of people and animals will be displaced every year in the next two decades unless humans act now. Our goal of this documentary is to raise awareness about global warming. According to a study by Cambridge University, the incidence of landslides is expected to increase in frequency over the remainder of the 21st century. Globally, landslides and other ground failures take a tremendous human and economic toll, and with climate change bringing a sharp rise in intense precipitation events in many countries, the threat of bigger, more frequent landslides is looming. Further research on the impacts of landslides needs to be undertaken. We hope our film inspires ideas, questions, and actions that are needed now.

ARTISTIC VISION

The film is told from the unique anthropomorphic point of view of the director's dog. The director's decision was made in hope of offering an endearing, heartwarming, and visually engaging perspective of her emotionally challenging experience. The dog’s simplified tone renders complex issues of climate change more approachable to a wide audience.

Cinematically, the opening sequence is big and grand showing the iconic landscape of the scenic Big Sur coastline. The opening scene of the subjects within this environment are intimate, playful, and organic. This invites the viewer to experience the raw, powerful, and inspiring Central Coast of California in a close and personal way. Filmed over several years in Big Sur, CALIFORNIA LANDSLIDE unfolds as a series of interconnected vignettes, ranging from aerial footage of the devastation to extremely personal moments. As the filmmakers evacuate by foot, traversing massive cracks on steep mountainsides, dodging fallen boulders, and passing over roadways slowly collapsing into the Pacific Ocean, the rugged Big Sur landscape serves as a complementary backdrop to the evacuee’s emotions, fears, and dreams.

Stylistically, the cinematographer and director, Dana Richardson, was inspired by Agnès Varda and her cinematic language of reflexive documentary storytelling. The film subtly informs the audience that the camera person is intentionally present through glimpses of her face, hands, and feet caught on screen. The camera movement emotionally informs the audience through handheld techniques, sometimes severe camera angles and playful digressions. The historical landslide in California is told through the integration of non-traditional mediums utilizing the director’s personal home video footage combined with archival stock footage, smartphone videos, aerial helicopter footage, and satellite still images. Shots that break the traditional 180° axis of camera movement play with the expectations of the audience. The result is a visually stimulating juxtaposition of experiencing the anxiety of being inside an active disaster zone interrupted by moments of relief during wide, aerial landscape shots. Visually, the film creates a touching portrait that is part autobiographical, part social critique, part travelogue, which transpires into a powerful celebration of nature, animal, and human resilience.