Told through the eyes of 12 people, “Beneath the Ashes: The Past Reimagined” is a new documentary that casts a close look on Altadena before and after the Eaton fire ravaged the town, and asks how its racial history can direct the future.
More than 400 people attended the premier of “Beneath the Ashes” Sunday, Feb. 2, at the AGBU Vatche & Tamar Manoukian Performance Art Center in Pasadena. The producer of the documentary is Brandon D. Lamar, president of the Pasadena NAACP.
Director Hrag Yedalian of Pasadena said filming began for an entirely different movie in November of 2024, one focused on the history of race and racism in Northwest Pasadena.
The deadly Eaton fire that erupted in town two months later upended that.
“I told Brandon, ‘Our film just changed,’” Yedalian said. “You can’t talk about the history of Northwest Pasadena without rooting it in the fires, and it became an urgent story.”
Lamar helped Yedalian gather the film’s central cast of locals. Guests of honor at the premiere included interviewees who lost their homes, church and businesses, such as community artist Keni Arts; Pastor Thomas Bereal of Abounding Grace Ministries; Emeka Chukwurah, owner of Rhythms of the Village; Patrice Marshall McKenzie of the Pasadena Unified School District board; Rose Robinson, daughter of Olympian Mack Robinson and niece of Jackie Robinson; and longtime residents Dawn Moore and Rand Vance.
Altadena advocates featured in the film include Chris Holden, former state legislator and CEO of LA Fire Justice; Jasmin Shupper, founder of Greenline Housing Project; and John Williams, executive director of The Center for Restorative Justice.
Detail of a background signed by attendees at the premiere of the documentary “Beneath the Ashes: The Past Reimagined” about the Eaton fire, produced by Brandon Lamar of the Pasadena NAACP and Project Passion. (Photo courtesy of Job E. Rivera) Messages written by guests at the premiere of “Beneath the Ashes” include exhortations to keep showing up, to hold on to hope. The documentary about the Eaton fire and its impact on Altadena’s Black community was held Sunday, Feb. 1, in Pasadena. (Photo by Anissa V. Rivera/Pasadena Star-News) Altadena’s roots in its Black community remain strong, Pastor Thomas Bereal told attendees at the premiere of the documentary “Beneath the Ashes: The Past Reimagined” on Sunday, Feb. 1, at the AGBU Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Cultural Center in Pasadena. (Photo by Anissa Rivera/Pasadena Star-News) Show Caption1 of 3Detail of a background signed by attendees at the premiere of the documentary “Beneath the Ashes: The Past Reimagined” about the Eaton fire, produced by Brandon Lamar of the Pasadena NAACP and Project Passion. (Photo courtesy of Job E. Rivera) ExpandYedalian and cinematographer Emrys Roberts began interviews days after the fire, taking their subjects to the rubble of their homes. The documentary also uses archival footage to examine Altadena and Pasadena’s racial history.
Lamar, who is also the founder of Project Passion, which helps supply fire survivors with essential items and services, and who also serves as executive director of Harambee Ministries, both in Pasadena, said the film documents stories from the fire in hopes of helping Altadena’s Black community rebuild.
“Disasters don’t discriminate. Recovery does,” Lamar said. “We want to make sure that recovery is not discriminated against in our community, that everyone who wants to rebuild, everyone who has the ability to rebuild, can come back into their community. And if it’s your choice to go away, that’s your choice, but everybody who wants to rebuild in this community, we want them to have the resources and the means to do so.”
Marshall McKenzie, a third-generation Altadenan, said the film tells a powerful story with an urgent message: people still need help.
“We all have experienced the collective trauma and our restoration also must be collective if we want to be successful,” she said.
Holden commended the filmmakers for being able to capture raw emotions and the pain of surviving and losing so much.
“The pain, but also to capture the steely determination to rebuild and to move forward and to have that hope, that’s what this film represents,” Holden said. “This is what the film will show. It will make you feel.”
Top among those complex feelings involved the 19 dead, failed warning systems, contaminated soil, and dealing with a utility-caused disaster, Holden said.
It’s devastation at epic proportions to a community that’s had to struggle for everything they ever got, he added. “And now many feel we’re right back at the starting line again. It might as well be 1959.
“What makes this a special place is this diversity, the cultural diversity, the racial diversity, the values that seem to be shared and a community that reflects that,” Holden said. “That’s the heart and soul of Altadena.”
For Jasmin Shupper, whose nonprofit Greenline Housing has scored substantial victories in buying Altadena lots and businesses, Altadena should be restored as it was but built back better, with equity.
“Don’t just put a Louis Vuitton store and put it in Altadena, so it wipes away the soul of what it is,” Chukwara, of Rhythms of the Village, said. “At the end of all of this, I want my kids to know their Dad did everything to keep that Louis Vuitton store from coming, to keep the developers at bay and keep our community together.”
In the end, Lamar asked his guests for one final message for Altadena. Keni Arts said, “Stay.”
“Don’t pay attention to the way things look right now,” he added. “Whatever happens 5 or 10 years from now, as long as we stay, it’s still gonna be Altadena.”
Rose Robinson encouraged survivors to breathe through the hurt.
“My message to Altadena is first, my dear Altadena, I love you,” she said. “We’re still hurting. I’m still hurting. And I want to say, allow that process to go, whichever, however it is, we gotta cry. We have to talk. We have to be alone. We have to be with others. It’s OK to say no. It’s OK to shut down. It’s OK to rise back up. But more importantly to me. Just exhale. And then whatever comes out of the exhale. Let it come. So we can keep going.”
It’s a message her son Dennis Robinson sends out in every item from his Pasadena CLSC collection: which includes a “Restore Altadena” line.
He said he takes heart from one item his mother was able to unearth from the ruins of her home was her father Mack’s toolbox, reduced to red-orange rust by the fire, but still containing tools with which to fix things. To rebuild things. To restore and renew.
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