A New Inferno
2026 · 16m · United States
Directed by Nita Blum-Reddick, Jonathan Pickett
Genres: documentary
Tones: contemplative, tense
During Phoenix's brutal summer heatwave, paramedics race to save heatstroke victims with a radical new treatment: ice-immersion therapy.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
A procedural about paramedics doing their job in a heat crisis—sounds like prestige-doc wallpaper, but I'd need to see if Blum-Reddick and Pickett actually subvert the rescue narrative or just document it with good intentions.
The structure here likely mirrors the formal rigor of medical cinema—*The Bleeding Edge*, *Grey Gardens*—where documentary becomes a study of institutional response under duress; whether it achieves that lineage depends entirely on editorial discipline.
The radical move is probably in how they're cutting between the immersion treatment itself and the paramedics' decision-making—one moment, one sonic or editorial choice that makes the brutality of heat-as-killer feel immediate rather than abstractly tragic.
Festivals
- SXSW Film Festival 2026, World premiere
- Tribeca x NYT Op-Docs
- Mountainfilm
- Rooftop Films
- Palm Springs International ShortFest
- Indy Shorts Film Festival
- HollyShorts Film Festival
- Nashville Film Festival
- Bend Film Festival
- Mill Valley Film Festival
- Sidewalk Film Festival
- deadCenter Film Festival
- Ouray International Film Festival
- Cinema Columbus
- AfterImage Film Festival
- Coast Film Festival