Community Virtual Screening: Fire & Flood

Vanessa Raditz is an environmental health researcher, youth educator, and culture-shifter dedicated to community healing, opening access to land and resources, and fostering a thriving local economy based on human and ecological resilience. Vanessa received their Master of Public Health in Environmental Health Sciences from UC Berkeley, and currently studies in the Geography PhD program at University of Georgia. Vanessa is part of the founding collective of the Queer Ecojustice Project, educating and organizing at the intersection of ecological justice and queer liberation.

Vanessa co-organized the Queers4ClimateJustice contingent to the RISE March for Climate, Jobs, and Justice in fall of 2018 and continues to manage the #Queers4ClimateJustice Instagram. The "Fire and Flood" film project is rooted in Vanessa's lived experience of the 2017 fires in Northern California.

"Fire & Flood: Queer Resilience in the Era of Climate Change" tells the story of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico and the fires in Santa Rosa, California, two-near simultaneous climate-related disasters in the fall of 2017, through the voices of LGBTQ people who lived through them and were part of the community response. The film explores the vulnerability of LGBTQ communities to climate disasters and also lifts up queer and trans strategies for resilience, transition, and survival.

"Fire and Flood" was piloted at the National LGBTQ Task Force's Creating Change Conference in January, 2018, with positive feedback on the need for these stories in the LGBTQ movement.