Where We Rise
2026 · 11m
Directed by Todd Felderstein
Genres: documentary, essay film
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tender
After the Los Angeles fires, the Perricone family and fellow Angelenos share sorrow through performance, movement, and sound in a landscape of renewal.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
It's a grief film dressed up as uplift, which could've been saccharine disaster—but Felderstein's refusal to let catharsis arrive too easily, the way movement and sound refuse easy resolution, actually makes the sentimentality feel earned rather than imposed.
A formally considered essay that understands how documentary can become lyric without abandoning its obligation to witness; the structure of shared performance as a frame for collective mourning sits in real conversation with the essay film tradition, and the restraint of the visual language proves more devastating than spectacle could.
The singular choice here is letting the bodies and voices of non-professionals carry the entire emotional weight—no score manipulation, no dramatic cutting—which means everything hinges on casting and the durational commitment to let a moment breathe, and Felderstein trusts that completely.