Playing with Fire: An Ecosexual Emergency
What’s it rated? Unrated
When? 2025
Where’s it showing? Cuesta College Performing Arts Center,
Wednesday, Jan. 28 (5:30 to 7:30 p.m.;
reserve your free spot at eventbrite.com)
Directed by Bay Area queer icons Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens, this 2025 documentary is their artistic response to the devastating 2020 CZU Lightning Complex Fires in Northern California, the latest in a trilogy of queer environmental films after Goodbye Gauley Mountain: An Ecosexual Love Story (2014) and Water Makes Us Wet: An Ecosexual Adventure (2019).
Sprinkle and Stephens, both romantic partners and artist collaborators for more than two decades, are self-described ecosexuals. In 2008, the couple married the Earth in an elaborate ceremony. Their playful approach to this documentary—that includes talking goats that text each other, among other whimsies—is rooted in a deep love of nature and proves you don’t have to be overly serious to explore a serious topic.
They interview their Boulder Creek neighbors, many of whom lost everything in the fires, as well as artists, indigenous elders, witches, formerly incarcerated firefighters, and educators to explore ways humans can support the health of the Earth. It’s engaging, informative, and entertaining, and Sprinkle and Stephens will offer an artists’ talk before the screening and a sneak peek of Samantha Nye’s installation at the Cuest Art Gallery called Web of Love after. (71 min.)
—Glen Starkey
This article appears in January 22 – January 29, 2026.