Directed by Gloria Mercer

Logline: A female firefighter takes her daughter along for a day on the job.

Synopsis: In 1981, a young girl spends a day at the fire station with her mother, the only female firefighter on the force, and witnesses what a typical day of work looks like, for better and for worse.

Distribution Contact: WFG

More Details

RUNTIME: 12 Minutes
GENRE: Narrative, Fiction
PRODUCTION FORMAT: HD
LANGUAGE: English
LOCATION: British Columbia
TECHNIQUES: Live Action, Visual Effects
KEYWORDS: Firefighter, Female Firefighter, Female Filmmaker

Director's Statement: When I read the script for the feature film, Smoke Eater, I saw my mom in Barbara Gardener. Barbara is tough as nails and up against a practically unstoppable force, and every night she comes home to her young daughter, Robin. This connection pulled me into the world of firefighting; a world fraught with familiar institutional sexism, but one that included an exciting and dangerous job I knew little about.

Barbara's story is about legacy; she is one of the first female firefighters in America. She is the rookie learning the ropes, while she opens the door for more women to enter the force. Barbara and her daughter have a complex bond, and Barbara is not a perfect mother. But her time spent in the firehall is in service to a generation of women to come. In our short film Smoke Eater, Robin may not want to be a firefighter, but she learns what it means for her mother to be one.

In my previous directorial work, I have explored female coming-of-age stories, and mother-daughter relationships. I find the generational relationships between women to be of utmost importance, and as a filmmaker I feel that it is my duty to create complex and nuanced portrayals of those relationships. Smoke Eater is a continuation of the themes that influence my previous films; it complicates the idea of a strong female character, while also breaking new ground for myself in terms of genre and artistic direction.
Smoke Eater is a firefighting story, but beyond that it's a story about institutional injustice. It's a film that studies how male-dominated spaces put women through the ringer. It's a story about the immense strength required to survive in a hostile environment, which is something that I, and all women, understand all too well.