Since time immemorial, Yurok people have placed fire on the land to maintain a balanced ecosystem. In the past century, settlers banned fire and the environment and people have suffered. Now, Yurok people are returning fire medicine to heal the land.
SYNOPSIS
WE ARRIVE WITH FIRE is an Indigenous telling of the complicated story of fire, fire suppression, and the reuniting of good fire and land. The Yurok people of the Klamath River region of California used fire as medicine for the land, and it thrived until settlers made it illegal for Native peoples to place fire on the land. The land languished and the recent spate of wildfires have demonstrated a land in crisis. WE ARRIVE WITH FIRE follows the Yurok people’s efforts to ensure that good fire and the land remain united now and into the future.
WE ARRIVE WITH FIRE features the Cultural Fire Management Council (CFMC), a first of its kind non-profit created and led by tribal members Margo Robbins, Elizabeth Azzuz, and Robert McConnell. The crew work with elders to protect homes, clear out invasive plant species, invite fire practitioners to Yurok lands to learn about cultural fire and educate the community about how to care for their land with fire. While colonizers train crews to extinguish fire, the CFMC teaches how to place fire to return the land to the balance not seen for nearly 150 years and educates the world about good fire.
Director Statement
Aiy-ye-kwee, nek’new Roni Jo Draper. I am an enrolled member of the Yurok tribe from the village of Weispus, known today as Weitchpec, at the fork of the Klamath and Trinity Rivers in California. I grew up visiting Weitchpec each summer to swim in the river, gather berries, and run free with my cousins. I consider Weitchpec my home, not just because it is the ancestral lands of my family, but because I continue to return there with my own family. Weitchpec is the location where I can feel my ancestors teaching me and guiding me to step into my own best future.
As an emerging filmmaker with experience as a scholar and ethnographer, I am interested in developing my ability to connect to audiences unfamiliar with Yurok stories and lifeways. As an Indigenous scholar, it’s challenging to adhere to Western approaches to conduct and report social science research. I’ve turned to art and storytelling to relieve myself of the confines of academic approaches. However, art also remains encumbered by the Western tastes that dominate both the content and structure of stories that get to be told.
Telling our own stories in our own ways is another aspect of exercising our sovereignty as Indigenous peoples. Colonialism refuses to view Indigenous peoples as more than mere objects in stories. I desire to create Indigenous stories that reveal the complexities of people with approaches to community, kinship, and land that offer the world new options for how to be in the world.
ABOUT FILMMAKER(S)
Director Roni Jo Draper
Director & Writer Roni Jo Draper (Yurok | she.her), PhD is an enrolled member of the Yurok tribe, from the village of Weispus (Weitchpec) at the fork of the Klamath and Trinity Rivers in what is now considered Northern California. Her experience as a queer, Yurok woman, and the realities and acute pain of discriminatory practices and policies enacted in school settings, has influenced her writing and work as a teacher, scholar, and artist. As a former high school mathematics/science teacher and university professor, Roni has now turned her attention to storytelling practices outside of traditional academia—including poetry making, traditional basket weaving, and other art forms—as a way to explore the human experience and share stories with others. Roni produced SCENES FROM THE GLITTERING WORLD, stories of three Diné adolescents living on the fringes of the Navajo Nation. She also produced, directed, and wrote FIRE TENDER, a short film highlighting the work of Margo Robbins and Yurok cultural fire practices. Roni’s work has been supported by the National Geographic Society, Vision Maker Media, Women Make Movies, and other organizations interested in highlighting the stories of Indigenous women working to protect the environment and cultural lifeways.
Director/Producer Marissa Lila Kongao
Director, Producer, and Cinematographer Marissa Lila Kongao (they/them) is a documentarian and psychedelic healer who was raised in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Thailand. As a director and producer for film and television, their work centers marginalized perspectives who use storytelling to heal and has included work in Thai and English. Their work includes: FIRE TENDER (2023) nominated for Best Short Doc at American Indian Film Festival, TRANSMORMON, which has garnered over 6 million online views and follows a Japanese-American trans woman and her devout Mormon parents (Artistic Vision award at the 2014 Big Sky Film Festival); DEEP SOUTH CANCER FIGHTERS focuses on advocates in rural Alabama who work to end racial health disparities in their community (Sidewalk Film Festival); and SCAVENGER, filmed in Marissa's home country of Thailand, capturing the insights of a trash collector and his attempt to lift his family out of poverty (MountainFilm in Telluride). Marissa directed and produced episodes for the Regional Emmy-winning documentary series GENERATIONS PROJECT (BYU-TV, ABC, and PBS). Additionally, they have worked in educational media, directing and producing documentary content to create more equity for students inclusive of race, class, language, sexual orientation, and/or disability.
Producer Nicole Docta (she/her) is an award-winning documentary filmmaker who has focused her career on producing socially provoking BIPOC stories. Nicole was part of the producing teams on the Peabody Award-winning THE JUDGE (TIFF 2017), Emmy and Anthem Award-winning BELLY OF THE BEAST (HRWFF 2020), and duPont Award-winner THROUGH THE NIGHT (Tribeca 2020) all of which aired on PBS’ Independent Lens and POV. Not only does Nicole strive to improve outcomes for the communities in her films, she’s dedicated to enhancing the documentary industry. Nicole worked as the Special Initiatives Producer at Firelight Media for three years co-curating the Beyond Resilience Series and helping to implement new artist programs to support BIPOC filmmakers. She’s the Conversations Program Lead at the Asian American Documentary Network (A-Doc). Nicole also volunteers on the Documentary Producers Alliance’s (DPA) Equity & Inclusion Committee and the Utah Documentary Association Steering Committee. Nicole is a USC CPD NextGen Creative Fellow, PGA Create alum, DOC NYC 40 Under 40, a 2023 Sundance Producer Fellow, 2023 Impact Partners Producer Fellow, and 2025 Sundance Asian American Fellow.
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