Fire Through Dry Grass

Alexis Neophytides and Andres “Jay” Molina (2023, U.S., 90 min.) + post-film discussion

Wearing snapback caps and Air Jordans, Andres “Jay” Molina and the other Reality Poets don’t look like typical nursing home residents. They used to travel around New York City sharing their art and hard-earned wisdom with youth. Now, using GoPros clamped to their wheelchairs, they document their harrowing experiences on “lock down.” Covid-positive patients are moved into their bedrooms; nurses fashion PPE out of garbage bags; refrigerated-trailer morgues hum outside residents’ windows. All the while public officials deny the suffering and dying behind Coler Specialty Hospital and Chronic Care Nursing Home’s brick walls.

The Reality Poets—a group of mostly gun violence survivors—let their rhymes flow throughout the film, underscoring feelings that their home is now as dangerous as the streets they once ran. However, instead of history repeating itself on this tiny island with a dark history of institutional neglect and abandonment, Fire Through Dry Grass shows these disabled Black and brown artists refusing to be abused, confined, erased.

We are screening this film in connection with Penn State Sustainability’s Colloquium on the Environment Keynote, [originally scheduled to take place a week earlier on Wednesday, February 5, but rescheduled to Wednesday, April 9, due to inclement weather]. Using insights from his sociological research, Colloquium speaker Eric Klinenberg will help us consider how we can move forward from recent historical challenges, including Covid, to find more productive and empathetic engagement as a society. He will explore the power of becoming engaged in broader social networks to protect people’s health, happiness, and sense of purpose.

(This film screening was a collaboration with POV, PBS’ award-winning nonfiction film series: https://www.pbs.org/pov/, and was also screening in partnership with WPSU. The film originally premiered on POV on October 30, 2023.)

Following the film, we featured a discussion with a panel of experts on community, healthcare, resilience, and more. The panel included:

• Dr. Kristina Brant, Assistant Professor of Rural Sociology, Penn State University
• Dr. Erica Husser, Gerontologist and Assistant Research Professor, Penn State Ross and Carol Nese College of Nursing
• Dr. Suzanne Smeltzer, Professor Emerita, Villanova University College of Nursing
• Megh Snelling, Fourth-year Music and Disability Studies student, Penn State University