Doc Shorts 2: Into the Inferno
Guests Expected
The Nightcrawlers director Alexander A. Mora and Fire in Paradise co-director Drea Cooper and subject Sean Norman are expected to attend.
Description
It is often remarked that people show their true colors in times of crisis. These two 40-minute films—The Nightcrawlers and Fire in Paradise—tell harrowing personal stories of people trying to negotiate incredibly challenging circumstances, whether it’s a national leader’s strongman policies or the most destructive fire in California history. Uncompromising and unforgettable visual footage complement and underscore the subjects’ chronicles.
Total runtime 81 min.
The Nightcrawlers
(Alexander A. Mora, Philippines 2019, 40 min)
Alexander A. Mora’s debut film tells the story of the Duterte administration’s crackdown on drugs through the multiple lenses of homicidal vigilantes, the families affected by their violence, and the journalists struggling to tell the story.
Fire in Paradise
(Zackary Canepari, Drea Cooper, USA 2019, 40 min)
This short also uses multiple viewpoints—first responders, 911 operators, elementary school teachers, and residents—to chronicle acts of heroism that occurred during the devastating Camp Fire in November 2018.
co-presented by
Zackary Canepari’s career began in India/Pakistan in 2007, where he worked as a photojournalist for a handful of editorial clients and non-profits. In 2010, Canepari teamed with filmmaker Drea Cooper and launched California Is a Place, a documentary film series about California which screened at a number of international festivals including Sundance and IDFA. Their first feature documentary T-Rex, about Olympic boxer Claressa “T-Rex” Shields, won the SFFILM Festival Audience Award for Documentary in 2016.
Drea Cooper is an award-winning filmmaker and commercial director. After California Is a Place, he and Canepari landed on Filmmaker magazine’s “Top 25 New Filmmakers to Watch List.” In addition to the SFFILM Festival Award, T-Rex went on to win audience and jury awards around the country including Hot Docs. He’s also part of the accomplished commercial directing team known as ZCDC. Cooper’s latest project Flint Town, a Netflix Original Documentary Series, released to critical acclaim.
Debut filmmaker Alexander A. Mora says that with The Nightcrawlers, he aimed to make an “unflinching exposé of Filipino President Duterte’s war on drugs, in which some claim over 20,000 people have been killed.”