Filmscreening, performative introduction and Q&A Playing with Fire: An Ecosexual Emergency

A Documentary Film by Annie Sprinkle & Beth Stephens

When:
Tue, May 5, 2026, 8pm–10pm

Free admission

Duration:
approx. 2 hours

Meeting point:
HFF-Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen

When:
Tue, May 5, 2026, 8pm–10pm

Free admission

Duration:
approx. 2 hours

Meeting point:
HFF-Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen

Playing with Fire: An Ecosexual Emergency is a joyous ecosexual documentary born from the ashes of California’s devastating fires. When lightning ignites the redwood forest surrounding their home in Boulder Creek, longtime lovers Beth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle are forced to evacuate — and their lives are forever transformed.
Blending loss and grief with art, humor, and community care, the film unfolds through an ecosexual lens (imagining the Earth as a lover) while weaving stories from formerly incarcerated firefighters, an Indigenous scholar, fire artists, neighbors, a witch-therapist, a fire-play massage fetishist, and a fire tassel twirling burlesque queen.
Playing with Fire explores how climate catastrophe intersects with social justice, and is a powerful portrait of resilience in the face of a world in flames. Partially narrated by Boulder Creek’s mythical white peacock Albert and culminating in a ceremonial Wedding to Fire on a riverbank in the redwoods, Playing with Fire is a creative and urgent call-to-action as the climate crisis worsens, and is a powerful portrait of queer resilience in the face of a world in flames.

Directors: Beth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle
Producers: Keith Wilson, Oana Tenter, Beth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle
Production: Co: E.A.R.T.H. Lab SF
Executive Producers: Xandra Coe, Judy Meath, Julia Robertson and Joseph Kramer
Director of Photography: Jordan Freeman
Original Music: Guillermo Galindo
Editor: Diana J. Brodie

Organizers of the event: Ella von der Haide, Helen Varley Jamieson, Felix Klee and Samira Yildirim