From the Ashes

“From the Ashes” Part One depicts the California wildfires’ impact on one community through expressive art. The Redwood Complex Fire was the “forgotten fire” when several October 2017 fires ravaged Sonoma, Napa, and Mendocino Counties. After devastating losses, the people of the town had to reckon with trauma, fear, grief, and coming to terms with a new reality and how the impact of climate change threatens their very existence. From the Ashes demonstrates the resilience of a community as they take time to grieve, make sense of it all and rebuild lives with the knowledge that the next fire may be at any time. They lost life as they knew it, a feeling of safety in an idyllic environment.

  • Jaye Alison Moscariello
    Director
    Five Stages of THIS Artist's Life, I Left the City for THIS?
  • Jaye Alison Moscariello - unscripted
    Writer
  • Jaye Alison Moscariello
    Producer
    above
  • Community Members
    Key Cast
  • Jason Christopher
    Editor
  • Bill Taylor
    Music
  • Joe Nemeth
    Music
  • Project Type:
    Documentary
  • Runtime:
    33 minutes 19 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    July 22, 2019
  • Production Budget:
    10,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Jaye Alison Moscariello

Jaye Alison Moscariello, longtime visual artist, has participated in several independent productions in various roles including producer, storyboard artist, casting director and assistant director. After leaving Los Angeles in ’09 to go up north to Mendocino County, she became an artist farmer, and taken by the incredible landscape, produced two short films “I Left the City for THIS?”, and “Five Stages of THIS Artist’s Life”. Following the wildfires of July and October 2017 she curated four art exhibitions of 171 works by 69 artists, entitled “Out of the Ashes” created by fire survivors of which she was one. This experience propelled her to make a film about how her community responded and generated a new life “From the Ashes”.

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Director Statement

A tragic fire in my small community, displaced hundreds of people who suffered incredible losses became the impetus for making this film. The voices are authentic experiences recorded of residents and survivors of the Redwood Complex Fire 2017. Many people awakened in predawn hours, grabbed whatever possessions they could and left before walls and towers of flames swept their homes away, others like me stayed, to protect our homes, some fought flaming embers and fire, and grabbed whatever they could, a cellphone, camera, to record some of the horror in the hope of making sense of it all. This is part one: Fire, Survival, Renewal. Part Two takes on issues of safety, climate change and doing things differently to mitigate the risks of fire in a rapidly changing world.