The COVID-19 pandemic feels hazy to most. A blur of being indoors, binge-watching Netflix and wearing masks. However, for the residents of Coler, a nursing home situated on Roosevelt Island in New York City, this virus presents an entirely new set of dangers and difficulties. Fire Through Dry Grass is a brazen and honest documentary, shot through a series of phone cameras, GoPros, and laptop webcams, it offers a charged and unique point of view of the worldwide pandemic.

Featuring and shot by members of the Reality Poets (a group of mostly gun violence survivors who have life altering conditions that require bespoke care), we are welcomed into their world and given access to life inside of Coler. When the pandemic hits, we see the struggles and pressures within the care home system from the perspective of the residents. We feel dread and outrage when positive patients are admitted because of the decision of the city council. We hear the frustrations and the cries for help from the residents. We see the blatant disregard for the reality of what’s happening inside of the home by those in power.

The Reality Poets’ rhythms and rhymes throughout serves as a heartbeat to the film, a creative outlet for the anger and helplessness they are feeling. They aren’t being heard, by the nurses who are overworked and are lacking resources, by the politicians and heads of business that are meant to have their best interests at heart, even sometimes by each other. What is so clear is how alone they all are during this time. Even when they are forced to share rooms with people, they are still alone. Another patient. Another task to cross off the list. The conditions they are left to exist in for over a year are inhumane and bleak, with more residents passing away due to the virus. 

This documentary serves as a reminder for how brutal the pandemic was. Not just on the individual but on society, on the world. It shows how Coler turned from a safe haven, a place to recover, into the most dangerous place on Earth, harbouring back to how many of them ended up there initially. It gives a voice to those who were not and are still not heard from in society. The black and brown artists in this film are refusing to be silenced, refusing to settle, and refusing to be contained. Their story is one that needs to be seen and needs to be heard, and if there is one documentary you seek out this year, make it be this one.