Wednesday, April 1, 2026

Altadena’s Story, Before It Could Be Forgotten, Is Now on Film

[photo credit: Pasadena International Film Festival]

 “Everything is gone,” a parent said. “We needed something to hold onto.”

They were talking about baseball — about the Central Altadena Little League season that nearly didn’t happen after the Eaton Fire burned through the neighborhood in January 2025, destroying more than 9,400 structures, according to Cal Fire. But the words describe something larger: what a community reaches for when the places that held its identity are gone.

Filmmakers in Altadena reached for cameras. Their work is now reaching screens.

The 13th annual Pasadena International Film Festival — founded by Pasadena residents and opening April 9 at Laemmle NoHo 7 in North Hollywood — has dedicated a cluster of five films to the Eaton Fire and the California wildfires. Among them is Altadena: The Heart. The Art and the Soul, a short documentary by Eric A. Dyson that examines what the community was before the fire. Dyson made the film through a grant from Ashes to Films, a nonprofit created specifically to fund fire-affected artists. It screens Thursday, April 9, at 3:40 p.m. in Block 2.

“The Eaton Fire was not getting a lot of attention in general,” said Sue Cremin, producer of Going for Home, another film in PIFF’s wildfire cluster. “It was being overshadowed.”

Going for Home, directed by Academy Award winner Eric Simonson, spent nine months following the Central Altadena Little League through a season played in the shadow of the fire. An estimated 60 to 90% of the league’s families were affected by the Eaton Fire, according to a review in Film Threat. The season continued anyway. The league partnered with West Pasadena Little League to make it work. For the kids, as the documentary captures, the field was one of the few things the fire hadn’t taken.

Dyson’s film had an earlier Pasadena-area showing: it screened at First United Methodist Church of Pasadena on March 21 as part of a program called “We Are Not the Disaster,” organized by Ashes to Films. Four other fire-affected filmmakers showed work at the same event. The nonprofit, founded in 2025 in the wake of the Eaton and Palisades fires, has raised approximately $85,000, according to Variety.

Going for Home screens Wednesday, April 15, at 5:50 p.m. in Block 31 alongside Embers, a wildfire-related music video. PIFF’s full slate of wildfire films also includes California is Burning and Echoes of the Palisades, the latter in Block 11 on Saturday, April 11, at 1:25 p.m.

According to its press release, PIFF 2026 presents more than 160 films — the festival’s own homepage lists 130 or more — from more than a dozen countries over eight days. Screenings are sponsored by First Entertainment Credit Union and each block ends with a moderated Q&A with filmmakers. PIFF was founded in 2012 by Jessica Hardin and Marco Neves, described in the festival’s own press release as “industry veterans and Pasadena residents.”

The festival’s closing gala takes place in Pasadena — not in North Hollywood — at Der Wolf RestoBar, 72 N. Fair Oaks Ave., on Thursday, April 16. Red carpet begins at 7 p.m.; the awards ceremony follows at 8 p.m.

PIFF 2026 Film Screenings: Block 10 | Saturday, April 11, 2026 at 11:30 a.m. | Cost: $35.00 | For more information call: 310-478-3836 | Or click here: https://www.pasadenafilmfestival.org/piff-2026 | Venue: Laemmle NoHo 7 5240 Lankershim Blvd. North Hollywood, CA 91601