In August 2020, a night of dry lightning sparked the CZU Lightning Complex fires in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The flames came within a block of the Boulder Creek home of artists, filmmakers and partners Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens, who evacuated to San Francisco. Nearly 1,500 homes burned. Big Basin Redwood State Park, California’s oldest state park, was devastated, along with trees that had stood for a thousand years and the animals that lived among them.
Out of that catastrophe came “Playing with Fire: An Ecosexual Emergency,” the third film in the couple’s ecosexual trilogy. Like “Goodbye Gauley Mountain: An Ecosexual Love Story” before it, the film refuses to stay inside one genre. It is part personal diary, part documentary investigation, part performance art, and all community portrait. We meet neighbors who are remarkably clear-eyed about living with fire, a witch therapist with tips for staying sane in insane times, and scholar Melissa Nelson, who traces how colonial fear of fire shaped both the land and the persecution of Indigenous fire practices. Presiding over it all is Albert, the neighborhood’s 35-year-old white peacock, local legend and the film’s narrator.
Told in chapters like a book, “Playing with Fire” treats the loss of trees, animals, homes and livelihoods as one ecosystem-wide grief. Then it asks what love, humor and ritual can do in the face of it. That question sits at the center of ecosex, the movement Sprinkle and Stephens have built over nearly two decades, which shifts the metaphor from Earth as mother to Earth as lover. Their famous weddings to the Earth, staged as free, participatory performance art, have most recently expanded to include fire itself.
Sprinkle, a former sex worker turned artist and sex educator with a PhD in human sexuality, has been documenting her sexual evolution on film since 1974. Stephens is a professor of art at UC Santa Cruz, where she teaches, among other things, a class built on interviews with California’s queer artists. Together their films have become what they call an “extended autobiography”: a portrait of their relationship, their community and a planet in crisis.
“Playing with Fire” premiered at Frameline in June 2025. A cancer diagnosis slowed its release, but the film had a mini theatrical run across the US from September through November 2026, with stops in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, where the full trilogy screened at the Music Box Theatre. As of November 6, 2026, it is available on major digital platforms in the US, UK, Canada, and additional English-speaking territories worldwide. I spoke with Sprinkle and Stephens about the fire, the peacock, the weddings, and why they call themselves pleasure activists.
“The fire came within a block”
Let’s start at the beginning, with the CZU Lightning Complex fires. What was that experience like, and how did it lead to “Playing with Fire”?
Beth Stephens (BS): We have a little place in Boulder Creek that we use when I’m teaching, and that’s where the heart of the fire was. I drove down from San Francisco the day after a terrible lightning storm, and I could see wisps of smoke in different places along the way. I knew it wasn’t good. Not long after we got to the house, a neighbor told us there were evacuation orders. We gathered our things and went back to San Francisco. We were lucky to be able to do that.
Annie Sprinkle (AS): People should know how enormous these fires were. There was human loss, but also the loss of thousands of trees, some of them a thousand years old, and birds, horses and other animals. The vegetation was devastated.
BS: Almost 1,500 houses burned. It devastated Big Basin Redwood State Park, the oldest state park in California. The park is coming back, and that’s in the film. The smoke traveled across the whole Bay Area, and the sky turned orange.
AS: But the film is really about how Beth and I navigated crisis and catastrophic climate events through an ecosexual, sex-positive, very community-based lens.
Earth as lover
For someone who knows nothing about it, how would you explain the ecosexual movement?
BS: I think of ecosexuality as an attraction to the Earth as lover. It shifts the metaphor from Earth as mother to Earth as lover. For us it’s a conceptual art project, but it’s also an environmental activist project. It means someone who loves the Earth. It doesn’t have to be consummated sex; it can be platonic, sensual or erotic. We like to give pleasure to the Earth, not just take it. Anthropomorphizing the Earth, giving it human qualities so we can connect with it, is the same thing people do with God. Hindus, for example, imagine God in all kinds of forms.
AS: The word “ecosexual” was out there before, mostly as a dating term, like metrosexual, but it wasn’t used much. Beth and I wrote an ecosex manifesto and defined it more broadly. We say we launched the ecosex movement with that manifesto and all our art projects.
Fire can’t be killed
I love that the film embraces fire rather than fighting it. You learn to live with it, and Melissa Nelson explains how colonial fear of fire was tied to attempts to annihilate Indigenous people. How did your own view of fire shift?
BS: I’ve always loved fire. I was a ceramicist for a long time. My grandfather was a blacksmith who went on to run a machine shop, so I grew up around men welding. You’re not supposed to look without a protective helmet, but I was fascinated. One of my chores was clearing the yard and burning the brush. When I got into ceramics, I fell in love with firing kilns and all the magical ways fire can be used, including ritual fires. My grandmother cooked on a wood stove. So I’ve always had a friendly relationship with fire.
We didn’t have catastrophic forest fires where I grew up. That’s different now. These fires are more frequent, and they’re happening where they never did before. The idea of “fighting” fire makes it an enemy that has to be killed, but it can’t be killed. We need to know how to manage forests, and not drain all the water sources. It’s a more systemic way of thinking.
Melissa gave a beautiful description of that, including the history of colonialism. Fire has been turned into a metaphor for hell and the devil, but anything can be made into a negative metaphor. Reclaiming it as a positive one is a more useful way to work with fire in the future.
Neighbors, a witch therapist and a peacock named Albert
How did you find the people in the film?
AS: Most of them are our neighbors.
I loved the older couple, Kate and Hillary. They were so down to earth about fire. And then there’s Albert, who really comes alive. What was it like working with Albert and his voice?
AS: Albert was a white peacock. I won’t give away the end, but he lived to 35, and he’d been in this neighborhood that whole time. We’ve been there 23 years. He was an incredible character. Everyone recognized what a smart, badass peacock he was, and the neighborhood loved him. He’s a legend in our town, its mascot. When the fire came within a block of where we live, and where Albert lived, everyone on Facebook was asking how Albert was. We donated to the fire department and asked them to please take care of Albert. More than our house burning, we were worried about Albert.
He’s a big part of the story. When catastrophes happen, the news is about how much it will cost to rebuild and how many houses were lost. But people can rebuild houses. The biggest toll is the suffering of the ecosystem, the critters, the massive loss of life.
We also have a scene with a witch therapist named Oak, who gives “Oak’s Tips,” her top tips for staying sane in insane times.
I need to meet her (laughing)
BS: Come to witch camp next year.
You bring so many wonderful people to the screen, especially trans and queer people. And the video game section was fascinating.
Building the film in chapters
The film is beautifully constructed, with chapters focused on different topics and people. How did that structure come together?
AS: We had two test screenings, including one in L.A., and Beth’s brother, I believe, suggested the chapter structure. It’s like a book. Our process is very collaborative: we show the film when it’s still rough, take the feedback and really try to listen.
Then we had to find the right editor, and we lucked into Diana J. Brody, who, about ten years ago, had edited a piece about Albert for Animal Planet. It was complete dumb luck. On the phone we said the film might be narrated by a peacock named Albert, and she asked, “Is Albert a white peacock?” It felt like divine intervention.
Before that, our assistant editor, Oana Tenter, went through our massive amount of footage and made selects. She worked on it for a couple of years, and with Keith Wilson, who edited our first two films, we had a solid rough cut. We needed a final polish, and they were busy with their own films. Diana was perfect for what we were doing.
BS: Our original concept was a film about the whole ecosystem, including social fires. Fire is a metaphor: something dangerous that also transforms, with regrowth afterward. Social justice is very connected to fire, and the pattern of fire is the pattern of life. Things get destroyed, and then new growth happens. I wrote a grant for this to the Guggenheim, which we received in 2020.
I do want to push back on something Annie said about rebuilding houses. Many people in Santa Cruz can’t rebuild, because insurance is so difficult, and because the roads into the mountains are so narrow that the county won’t let people rebuild until they’re widened for fire trucks. Cal Fire’s trucks couldn’t get up some of those roads. About 1,500 homes burned, and one man died, which was a miracle given the scale. People own property they can’t build on again. That’s suffering too. So it was the humans, the animals and the plants.
“Not my idea or Annie’s, but the collaboration’s”
You’ve collaborated for a long time. What is it like making these films together?
BS: We run the whole gamut. We can hit on an idea and delight each other, or get into big disagreements, which are often like fire: they can seem crazy and destructive. But in the end we come up with a new idea that’s not my idea or Annie’s but the collaboration’s, and it’s usually better than what either of us would have come up with alone.
Annie was a much more experienced filmmaker than I was, having acted in and made films. I came to filmmaking with “Goodbye Gauley Mountain.” I’d filmed a lot of performance art and installations, but never a feature. Annie had sworn off filmmaking, and I got her to help me out. She didn’t really know what she was getting into, and if she had, she might not have gone along. It’s challenging and expensive. Our films aren’t even low budget; they’re no budget, and they’re still expensive. But I love working with Annie, and I’ve learned a lot.
The German filmmaker Monika Treut said our films are a new kind of documentary, combining personal narrative, documentary fact-finding, narrative storytelling and a kind of magic with animals, art and performance art. Not many people put those things together. So documentary festivals sometimes don’t see them as real documentaries, and queer festivals think they’re not queer enough. They don’t follow a template.
AS: That’s the beauty of the collaboration. We go after the emotional source and meaning of things, and we never know how a film will end when we begin it. The first film was Beth’s idea. She wanted to make a film about West Virginia and the destruction caused by mountaintop removal coal mining. We started it by 2009. “Goodbye Gauley Mountain: An Ecosexual Love Story” was Beth’s baby. I resisted, because I knew how much work a film is, but I supported her.
It turned out to be the first queer environmental activist documentary feature, as far as anyone can tell. If anyone knows of others, we’d love to hear about them, though of course we like being first. There are still almost no queer environmental documentaries. “Rivers of Grass” is one, and it’s incredible, but I don’t know of others.
Hope without naivety
I’ve never seen anything like these films. I love that you put yourselves in them and we take the journey with you, instead of watching from a distance. What do you hope people take from them?
BS: That even in dark moments, there are ways forward that can be loving, kind and hopeful. I know hope can be a trap. I don’t believe in blind hope. I’m feeling more and more socialist: we need to take a hard look at what’s happening, not just in this country but in the world because of this country. I sincerely believe environmental catastrophes are tied to economic catastrophes, to wealth disparity, and to the unfettered exploitation of resources, humans and animals.
But I can’t be negative or angry all the time. It burns me out or puts me into despair, and then I’m useless. Maybe we’re a little Pollyanna in proposing a hopeful vision, but it’s better than doom and gloom. And maybe viewers will find a new way of being in the world that shifts things a little. I have a quote on my wall that says “failure is impossible.” I thought it was Margaret Mead…
AS: It’s Susan B. Anthony.
BS: Apparently she didn’t actually say it, but it’s attributed to her. Who cares?
AS: What I want people to get is an education about environmental issues. We’re mostly preaching to the converted, or as I like to say, preaching to the perverted. We’re an affinity group of environmental activists from the sex-positive world and the art world. I’m a former sex worker. We bring together scholars, activists and the sex-positive community. I like the saying “filmmaking is community care.” If people who are already environmentally conscious come, it boosts them and makes them feel seen and heard.
But with “Goodbye Gauley Mountain,” a lot of people in West Virginia had no idea what was happening to their mountains, 500 of which were destroyed, along with rivers. So the dream would be reaching people who aren’t like-minded.
People outside your community should absolutely see these films. Film can bring people together and start conversations. My parents and I are very different politically, and sometimes we watch documentaries together so we can talk about real things rather than whatever our newsfeeds are showing us.
An extended autobiography
Ecosexuality and nature connect the trilogy. What else ties the three films together?
AS: The subtitles give a clue. The first is an ecosexual love story, the second an ecosexual adventure, a road trip, and the third an ecosexual emergency. They’re also portraits of our relationship across almost 20 years, a bit like the photographer Nicholas Nixon following the same group of sisters for decades. We were already in our 40s when we got together, but it’s an ongoing adventure: how we come to ideas, who our community is. The films are a sort of extended autobiography.
Beth and I both had solo careers as artists for many years before we met. I started making films at 18, in 1974, so that’s more than 50 years of documenting my sexual evolution. I’d like to think our films are also sex education, showing people how to find pleasure and joy in nature and expanding the definition of sex. I have a PhD in human sexuality, and when I learn something, I get excited, literally and figuratively, and want to share it. Ecosex sounds nutty and silly, and it’s easy to pooh-pooh, but it’s been generative to expand sex far beyond garter belts, vaginas, penises and sex toys.
Marrying the Earth, and now fire
I love the rituals in “Playing with Fire,” especially the wedding, which was so full of love. Can you talk about these rituals?
BS: Humor is a big part of these films. Even adopting the term “ecosexual” was a riff on “homosexual,” and on the authoritarian politics we’ve all become enmeshed in. We married the Earth in 2008, in the middle of the same-sex marriage wars, when same-sex couples were fighting for legal standing. We married the Earth because we felt it needed the rights and protections human beings enjoy. That’s when we adopted the term ecosexual, and we started making work about love. We’ve done many, many weddings since.
AS: To be clear, the weddings are performance art. Everyone who wants to can take vows to love, honor and cherish the Earth with us. They’re big, collaborative, free public events, not private ceremonies. People love or hate weddings, and there’s a lot to critique, but it’s a beautiful ritual that generates love. So we take its parts, clean them up and make performance art out of them. We spent seven years exploring love in the ecosex project, after a couple of decades exploring sex in our work.
We just married fire in Croatia after a screening of the film, and we’re going to do it again in Berlin. We also lead free ecosexual walking rituals outdoors, in parks. The audience becomes part of the ritual as brides, grooms, officiants, mothers and fathers of the bride, like the happenings of the ’60s. We’re very Fluxus-inspired. Fluxus was an art movement of the ’60s that came after Dada and the Surrealists. Yoko Ono is probably the most famous Fluxus artist, and Carolee Schneemann had Fluxus roots too.
BS: We differentiate the wedding from the marriage. The wedding is the performance, and that’s what we focus on. We always critique it, too, and we always have someone objecting: “Does anyone object to this union? Speak now or forever hold your peace.” We make space for the people who hate weddings. It’s been quite a wildfire, a firestorm of love.
Cancer, boobs and what comes next
What other projects are in the works, together or individually?
BS: We have a visual art show coming up in the spring. And with this film, we’re doing almost a relaunch. We premiered it at Frameline in June 2025, and then breast cancer derailed us from doing a big release, festivals and distribution. So we made a huge visual art show about boobs, Bazoombas in Love, which was covered in Artforum. It was collaborative: friends contributed art about boobs, we had “tarts and crafts” where people made boob-themed holiday presents, and there were readings. The whole program is at cushionworks.org. It was part of our healing process. So many people have been affected by cancer, and there are many theories linking environmental destruction to cancer, so for us these subjects aren’t unrelated. We’re fine right now with our cancer status.
AS: I’ve had breast cancer twice, and lung cancer. The first time, we did it together as an art project, and if you catch it early it isn’t so bad. But we realized the connection with the environment. There’s a lot of cancer where chemicals are dumped, in toxic areas. Our bodies are only part human; we’re made of billions of critters, including the creepy crawlers in our gut that need to be fed. Our bodies are ecosystems, and we are the Earth. All sex is ecosex. What we do to our bodies, we do to the Earth.
BS: This film also addresses aging, disease and desire. There are a lot of older people in it, and at one point we worried we should add younger people to make it more palatable to younger audiences.
I think it’s great that you show every age in your community.
AS: We like to think we’re still edgy and transgressive. When you’re young and have wild sex on film, that’s expected. But talking about sex and being naked at 72, which I am now, is way more transgressive. We’re expanding the boundaries of sex and sexuality, of what environmentalism can be, and of who gets to take part in it. A lot of environmental activism is judgmental and kind of Protestant. We’re doing it for the freaks and the queers and the old people and the animals, those who haven’t been part of that conversation. We all need to be part of this, as a community effort. Otherwise, who are we saving the Earth for?
Pleasure activists in an emergency
It really does feel like an emergency right now. What practical steps would you suggest for people who are frightened by all these catastrophes, both to take care of themselves and to help change things for the better?
BS: It’s very complicated. We’ve unleashed so many monsters with fossil fuels. We have to get away from relying on them, but that’s difficult because of the money made from extraction and sales, and because the U.S. military uses more oil than any other institution. The profits of war, all driven by fossil fuel, are beyond my comprehension. It sounds naive, but if we got away from fossil fuels, things would improve vastly. We’re doing a death dance with them right now.
So many things need to change. We need a government that works with the people and for the good of the Earth, and that isn’t profitable. I think we should get rid of capitalism; I’m one of those kooks who thinks we need to start over. A lot of people would be hurt, probably including me. But if we had a social system where people without money were supported and there wasn’t such great wealth inequality, things could improve. Whether they’d improve fast enough is anyone’s guess. I’m a bleeding heart.
AS: Since cave times there have been dangers in the world: war, violence. We have to go toward love and care as much as possible. We’re privileged enough to do what we can. I’m impressed by Greta Thunberg, and by the environmental activists who are killed protecting butterflies or whatever it is: people standing up to protect what they love. It was heartbreaking to watch protesters face 25 years for rescuing beagles. We have to balance our fear, anxiety and pain. And I don’t think more fighting is ever the answer. People have to learn to communicate better.
I was raised by parents who were anti-war and pro-civil rights. They were Unitarians and activists, and I was raised to be an activist. I’m a lover, not a fighter, so I try to give love. We’re taking care of our neighbors here, including one who was in the hospital with heart problems just after his wife had surgery. Neighbors come together and create community.
That’s the beauty of ecosex: if you’re in prison, if you’re old, there are always the sensual pleasures of nature, even just breathing. We call that having intercourse with the air we breathe. You can choose to find pleasure one way or another, no matter what’s going on, even in pain and suffering. We are pleasure activists through and through. We need joy and pleasure. That’s what trans communities are focusing on right now, and we’re huge allies. To us, the Earth is trans. We imagine the Earth as all genders, morphing and changing. It can be any of 43 million genders. So let there be pleasure on Earth, and let it begin with us.
That’s a perfect last line.
AS: I want to add one more thing. Part of the reason Beth and I are such a good pair is that I’m also a fighter. I’m a pleasure activist, but I’ll fight for what I think is right, and I don’t like it when someone does something wrong and it just gets let go. The people running things in the world today don’t take “no” or “please” for an answer. They bulldoze over people. So you have to stand up and take that risk. I have tremendous respect for protesters, and for migrants and all the people who are suffering right now. So: let there be pleasure, and let it begin with us. But boy, if you start a fight…
“Playing with Fire: An Ecosexual Emergency” is now available on major digital platforms in the US, UK, Canada, and additional English-speaking territories worldwide.
