Toxic Homes, Terrible Dilemma: Oscar Contender ‘Still Standing’ Documents Homeowner Nightmare After LA Wildfires – SFFILM Doc Stories
To shoot their Oscar-contending film Still Standing , directors Víctor Tadashi Suárez and Livia Albeck-Ripka donned hazmat suits – for good reason. Doc Talk Podcast: 'Remake' Director Ross McElwee On Love, Loss And Grieving For His Son Their documentary, winner of Oscar-qualifying awards at Full Frame, the Seattle International Film Festival, and Aspen Shortsfest, explores homes left toxic by the catastrophic Eaton fire that tore through the Altadena section of Los Angeles in January 2025. That wildfire destroyed thousands of homes in Altadena alone, but owners of homes that survived – the houses still standing – faced an impossible dilemma: should they risk their health to return home? “To enter toxic homes, we wore hazmat suits and masks, and covered our car in plastic sheeting,” the directors write. “This is the second time that we have made a film together about wildfires. We met in January 2020, working on a film about the Australian bushfires for The New York Times Presents.” POV/TIME Studios Still Standing screened at SFFILM’s Doc Stories in San Francisco this weekend. It screens at the San Diego Asian Film Festival Sunday, at UnionDocs in Queens, New York on Monday, and at Cameraimage in Torún, Poland on
