On Earth Day 2026, the Sunshine Coast Conservation Association was honoured to support film screenings of Emergence: Women in the Storm at Raven’s Cry Theatre in Sechelt.
Directed by Nova Ami and Velcrow Ripper, Emergence is a profoundly moving documentary about climate disaster, grief, resilience, and collective care.
The film brings viewers into communities in British Columbia and the Northwest Territories that have lived through wildfire, flooding, and the heat dome. Not through the distant lens of catastrophe reporting, but through intimate human experience.
Earth Day itself felt present in a different way this year.
After decades of environmental work on the Sunshine Coast, Earth Day no longer feels like only a celebration. It also feels like a reckoning.
The forests surrounding us are older than any nation-state on this continent.
The watersheds that sustain our communities are under growing stress. The climate that shaped life on the Sunshine Coast is changing faster than many of our institutions are prepared to respond to.
At SCCA, our work often focuses on old-growth forest advocacy, watershed protection, and climate accountability. Emergence reminds us that the ecological crisis is not only scientific or political. It is emotional. Relational. Spiritual. It lives in our nervous systems, our homes, our memories, and our communities.
The film’s power comes not from spectacle, but from witnessing.
From burned family photo albums transformed into startling works of colour and texture.
From stories of mothers, daughters, organizers, artists, and survivors learning how to hold one another through uncertainty.
From moments of tenderness and humour that continue even in the aftermath of devastation.
And from one quiet line in the film that seemed to settle over the theatre: “You can’t hold everything. You can’t fix everything. But the water will always be there.”
The filmmakers have spent nearly a decade documenting climate reality through film. Their earlier collaborations, Metamorphosis and Incandescence, explored planetary transformation and wildfire through poetic and immersive storytelling. Emergence brings that lens home to communities much closer to our own experience here on the coast.
Velcrow Ripper, born in Gibsons, has long explored the relationship among crisis, hope, and transformation in his work. Nova Ami has spoken publicly about the emotional toll of making climate films, and about the decision to shift focus toward those already showing us how to move through catastrophe with courage and care.
That shift is at the heart of Emergence.
The film challenges the conventional “command and control” model of emergency response and instead asks what becomes possible when communities choose to “connect and empower.” In an era increasingly shaped by climate disruption, that question feels urgent.
The screening itself was small and intimate. But perhaps that was fitting. The conversations afterward were thoughtful, emotional, and deeply human.
As environmental organizations, we often spend our time discussing policy, science, emissions, and regulation. While those conversations are deeply important, films like Emergence remind us that responding to climate change also requires emotional resilience, community connection, and the ability to stay present with grief without turning away.
This, too, is critical climate work.
The SCCA extends our heartfelt gratitude to Nova Ami and Velcrow Ripper for their lifelong commitment to raising awareness about climate impacts and for bringing this film to life. We also want to thank everyone who joined us at Raven’s Cry Theatre on Earth Day to watch it together.
To learn more about the film and the filmmakers, visit:https://emergence.film