When your world burns down, how do you grow up?

WINDSWEPT is a documentary feature in which the kids are our teachers. Through the journeys of four young people from a cross-section of LA, who were each displaced by 2025 wildfires, the film explores how individuals and communities rebuild, how identity is influenced, and how issues like class, housing, education, and the environment shape the future.

While each of our teen protagonist’s pitfalls and triumphs may be unique, the lessons they learn are universal. In a time of increasingly intense and frequent natural — and man-made — disasters, the need to share their stories is urgent.    

Tens of thousands of Angelenos — including the four featured teens in this film — are living in limbo. They remain displaced in a world where attention has moved on to numerous new crises: wars, economic instability, and democratic decline. Just in Los Angeles, masked immigration agents are snatching people off the streets, and the national guard has been deployed against the governor’s wishes. Another extreme wildfire season is forecast as the federal government cuts forest management and plans to abolish FEMA, the country’s top emergency management agency. Can kids envision a future in these circumstances? Can they create one?

WINDSWEPT will provide a poignant, character-driven look into how crisis affects different families, the tension between lived experience and what shows up in the headlines, and ultimately, a roadmap for resilience in the face of adversity.  Our hope is that the individual stories about these kids' journeys illuminate the collective humanity — and resilience — that can emerge in a time of frequent crisis.

Given the state of the world, many disasters will happen between now and the completion of WINDSWEPT. (In fact, it would take too much space to list all the tragedies that happened while we were simply preparing this document.) This will be a timely film this year — and the following year, and the next one, and the year after that. 

ABOUT US

This project is a labor of love, made possible by dedicated filmmaking pros, and co-directed by Elise Hu and Rufus Lusk, who have been collaborators since 2019.

From Elise: I have spent my career in non-fiction storytelling as a broadcast journalist and international correspondent. As an Asian American whose identity is shaped by living across two cultures, I view journalism as an act of love — trying to bridge different worlds and share what I find with others to deepen understanding of one another. This deeper, longer-form exploration of the youth perspective, through documentary, is an extension of that impulse. Success looks like finishing this film and ensuring it reaches other folks who are wondering (and maybe feeling collective guilt) about what we’re leaving behind for our kids. I believe all of us can learn from each other, and the kids have a lot to teach us. 

From Rufus: In 15 years of working in production, I have entered communities I never would have, talked with people remarkably different from myself, and explored ideas far from my natural comfort zone. In a time of cultural fragmentation, this has been a special gift.  Prior to this project, I had been exploring ways to tell complex stories about energy, ecology and flawed environmental policy centered around New York City. But after test shoots, it was clear my approach relied too heavily on expert testimonies. I needed an emotional way in. Then, Elise called.

On a shoot in Altadena, on Christmas Tree Lane, when it returned nearly a year after the fires.

THE TIMELINE

We are nearly finished filming with the four protagonists in the film. The youngest is in 7th grade, the oldest is about to start her senior year of high school. This campaign and your support makes possible the completion of our post-production on the film, after a year that's absolutely upended their lives — all four were displaced by fires that changed the trajectory of their lives, and their understanding of themselves.

We've shot most of the film before the one-year anniversary of the files. Then we staffed up to begin post-production — the work of turning all the gathered footage into a coherent narrative film. This campaign and your support gets us to the finish line of filming, namely, the archival work of combing through the hours and hours of footage captured by news cameras, photography crews and on social media, which will tell the story of the cataclysm. Our stretch goal is $15,000, because if we surpass our goal for this campaign, we will have the ability to staff for marketing and festivals, which will be vital to get this film to the widest audience possible.

We expect a rough cut of WINDSWEPT will be finished by fall 2026.

But it can't happen without your support. If you believe in this project, and our team, please smash that contribution button, and share it with your friends and family.