ALL THE WALLS CAME DOWN (2025) Screening w/ Director Ondi Timoner

In January 2025, filmmaker Ondi Timoner was overseas when the L.A. Fires of 2025 tore through her Altadena home, destroying everything—decades of archival footage, personal journals, equipment, and irreplaceable family memories. The first film ever made about these fires, ALL THE WALLS CAME DOWN is an intimate short documentary that captures the aftermath of that loss and expands into a larger story of displacement, resilience, and the fight to save the town.

As Timoner returns to recover what remains, she turns her lens outward—toward neighbors, many from long-established Black, Latino, and other communities of color who have called Altadena home for generations. These families now face not only the trauma of destruction, but increasing pressure from mortgage lenders, insurance companies, and opportunistic developers pushing them toward foreclosure or forced sales.

What begins as a personal reckoning becomes a powerful portrait of a community under siege.

A story of rupture and renewal, ALL THE WALLS CAME DOWN reveals what remains when the physical structures of life disappear—and the healing that can happen through the power of connection with community, as Ondi, her family and neighbors fight to preserve not just homes, but history, identity, and belonging.

As part of our immersive film series, this screening is designed to promote a deeper cultural reflection of cinema. We invite filmmakers to participate in our screenings, enabling the audience to better understand their creative perspective. By encouraging thoughtful, collaborative participation crossing both sides of the screen, this series is dedicated to studying and preserving the art of film.

We might be the first climate refugees you ever met, but we won’t be the last. The filming of this story felt imperative when, in January 2025, I lost my home, my life's archive, and decades of filmmaking materials in the devastating fire that took my beloved, thriving town of Altadena, California. The completion of it became urgent, as I discovered that the fire put my neighbors at risk of losing their generational properties. So, out of the ashes comes this film.

On January 8th, I received a text while filming in Europe that no one ever wants to get: My home in Altadena was burned to the ground. Everything — irreplaceable footage, journals, hard drives, our wedding video, everything my son ever created — was reduced to ashes. I returned to find nothing but rubble where 33 years of creativity, love, and living had once been.

I’ve spent much of my career documenting resilience in others — people forging ahead against the odds, creating meaning out of chaos. But this time, I found myself on the other side of the lens. Losing our home was not just the loss of shelter; it was a stripping away of identity, memory, and legacy. In the days that followed, I experienced a kind of homelessness — disoriented, unmoored, unsure where to begin.

I knew from making LAST FLIGHT HOME that despite feeling intense pain and grief, if I didn’t muster the strength to document amidst the chaos, I wouldn’t have the material with which to be able to transform the experience into something meaningful for others down the road. So I teamed up with my nephew, Eli Timoner, whose father and mother also lost their Altadena home over a mile south of mine, and a number of local camera people to capture the chaos that unfolded in in the six months since the fire destroyed more than 9400 structures, over 60% of the town.

ALL THE WALLS CAME DOWN was born not from a desire to tell my own story, but from an overwhelming need to make sense of this historic disaster and to tell my community’s story. It became a meditation on impermanence and the fragility of everything we assume to be stable. And yet, amidst the devastation, I found something remarkable: we became more aware and caring of each other as neighbors than we ever were when we lived next door to one another.

I didn’t realize as I faced my own ruins, that I would end up documenting an urgent situation regarding the future of Altadena. The story turned towards many long-established Black and Latino families who have called Altadena home for generations and now face displacement. That’s when I became determined to finish the film as quickly as possible, so that it can hopefully have an impact on the future of my community.

This film is not just about fire; it’s about transformation. It’s called ALL THE WALLS CAME DOWN because when our once-siloed lives were forever changed overnight, and none of us could go home again, the walls of race, class and culture also came down and my neighbors and I found strength and healing in standing together as a community and helping each other.

We live in a time of accelerating disaster, where fire, flood, and loss are becoming commonplace. But if walls can fall in an instant, perhaps the walls that divide us — between filmmaker and subject, between housed and unhoused, between past and future — can also come down.

This is not a film I ever expected to make. But alongside LAST FLIGHT HOME, it’s the most personal and important film I’ve ever made.

— Ondi Timoner

Ondi Timoner (Director, Producer, Editor) Ondi Timoner is an award-winning filmmaker known for documentaries about visionaries challenging the status quo. She's the only director to win Sundance's Grand Jury Prize twice—for DIG! and WE LIVE IN PUBLIC, both in MoMA's permanent collection. Her 2022 film LAST FLIGHT HOME, about her father's end-of-life journey, was Oscar-shortlisted, Emmy-nominated, and earned her the Visionary Award for Observational Filmmaking as well as the Humanitas Prize.

In 2024, she premiered DIG! **, THE INN BETWEEN, about the only hospice for the homeless in the U.S., and ALL GOD'S CHILDREN about an interfaith project to stop racism and anti-semitism. In 2025, she created a short film about the historic LA fires that took her home and town of Altadena called ALL THE WALLS CAME DOWN, which premiered at the Telluride Film Festival.

Timoner also produced, directed, and edited the scripted feature, MAPPLETHORPE: The Director's Cut, the critically-acclaimed ten hour series, JUNGLETOWN, and numerous award-winning short films, commercials and music videos. Timoner founded Interloper Films, is a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures and the Television Academy, and chairs the Nonfiction Subcommittee for Special Projects at the DGA.

Heavenly Hughes (Film Subject) Heavenly Hughes is the Founder and Executive Director of My TRIBE Rise, the only Black-led, boots-on-the-ground mutual aid organization in Altadena created long before the Eaton Fire. Heavenly Hughes was raised in Altadena, CA, and graduated from John Marshall Fundamental High School in Pasadena. Immediately following high school, Hughes was selected by Congressman Carlos Moorehead to join his staff on Capitol Hill through a highly selective internship program. In 1994, Hughes began her journey of directly aiding the underserved communities when she became the Chief Financial Officer of a home for unhoused women and children. She held this title for over seven years before becoming an Administrative Supervisor and Hearing Officer at Lemaire, Faunce, Pingel and Singer Law Firm, where she represented applicants with work injuries and disabilities. Through most of Hughes' corporate career she was the only Black person on the executive staff, and at times, the only woman. This inspired her to cofound My TRIBE Rise in 2019, with Victor Hodgson, to respond to needs for public safety, food and housing, economic development, and solutions to end violence in Altadena and Pasadena. Since the fire, she has worked tirelessly to meet the immediate needs of the most vulnerable displaced residents, to preserve the unique history of Altadena, and to keep her home town in the hands of the Black and Brown families who made Altadena a model of multiracial and mixed-income community. She is the recipient of a 2024 YWCA Women for Racial Justice Award and the non-profit of the year award from Congresswoman Judy Chu (for My TRIBE Rise). Heavenly Hughes models the kind of leadership built in longstanding relationships of trust that the future of California relies upon.

Eli Timoner (Producer) Eli Timoner is a first-time filmmaker. He graduated from the University of Chicago in 2022 and lives in Brooklyn, NY. He is the recipient of the Annan Award for Undergraduate Writing. When two of the Timoner family homes were destroyed in the Eaton Fire in January 2025, he felt called to document this rupture, capture what was lost and follow his neighbors as they navigated the long road to returning home. He took the first flight back to California and has been following this story ever since, working closely with Ondi in principal photography and throughout the edit. Additional credits include Associate Producer on Nathan Silver’s CAROL & JOY and Additional Story Producer on Ondi Timoner's ALL GOD’S CHILDREN.

Morgan Doctor (Composer/Subject) Morgan Doctor is a Juno- and Dora-nominated composer and drummer whose original scores can be heard in acclaimed films such as LAST FLIGHT HOME (Oscar-shortlisted), COMING CLEAN, THE NEW AMERICANS, and DIG! **. As a performer, she has toured internationally with artists like Feist, Fefe Dobson, Jill Barber, Chantal Kreviazuk, and The Cliks, and appeared on major broadcasts including David Letterman, MTV Live, and CNN. A solo artist signed to Aporia Records, she has released four albums and composed for TV shows like The L Word and Grey’s Anatomy. A passionate music educator and advocate, Morgan has taught at Girls Rock Camp Toronto and is a Banff Centre alum. She lives in Joshua Tree with her wife, Ondi Timoner, and her dachshund, Cymbal.

ADVISORY DISCLAIMER

With some exception, The Joshua Tree Cultural Center's Film Institute does not typically provide advisory warnings about potentially upsetting content or subject matter, as sensitivities are particular to each viewer. Please be sure to read event listings, research on the web, or visit Common Sense Media, IMDb, and DoesTheDogDie.com for thorough info on content and age-appropriateness. If you have any specific content advisory questions, please email [email protected].

CONTENT DISCLAIMER

The views, opinions, and thoughts expressed within exhibited works are solely those of their creators and may not represent those of the Joshua Tre Cultural Center (JTCC), its affiliates, or any individuals associated with JTCC. Screenings are intended for educational and entertainment purposes.

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