EXCLUSIVE: Actress and filmmaker Ricki Lake, who lost her Malibu home in the devastating Palisades fire, is joining Big Rock Burning as an executive producer, a film that documents the incredible destruction of the wildfire and the effort to rebuild.
The short film is directed and produced by David Goldblum, a resident of the Big Rock area of Malibu who barely escaped the fire. “In the immediate aftermath, [Goldblum] rallied the community to tell their stories,” notes a release. More than 40 Malibu residents impacted by the fires were involved in the filmmaking process.
The film is produced by Julie Parker Benello (American Factory, Athlete A) of Secret Sauce Media and James Costa (The Dating Game, Welcome to Chechnya) of Bird Street Productions, alongside Goldblum. Along with Lake, the impressive array of executive producers includes Mark and Marilou Hamill, Oscar-winning director Bryan Fogel (Icarus) and Trevor Burgess (The White House Effect, Free Leonard Peltier).
‘Big Rock Burning’
Conscious Contact/Bird Street Productions
“Big Rock Burning explores the resilient spirit of Malibu’s Big Rock community as they rebuild from the ashes of the devastating Palisades Fire,” reads a synopsis. “The film captures the raw aftermath of a harrowing night when residents were left to fend for themselves after officials deemed the area too dangerous to enter. With no help coming, neighbors turned into first responders; some fighting back flames with garden hoses, others forced to flee through walls of fire.”
Lake and her husband Ross Burningham lived in Las Flores Canyon, adjacent to Big Rock. As the fire spread rapidly from Palisades into Malibu, they battled to try to save their home.
“We had had equipment in place that we had gotten. We were trained to use this equipment, and we had the fire hoses, everything was deployed and ready to go, and we were hosing down both our property and my neighbor’s next door, and their property survived. Their house survived and ours didn’t,” Lake tells Deadline. “We left late in the evening with flames coming to our street… We all were fighting for ourselves, for our property and our lives because firetrucks didn’t come up Big Rock, and they didn’t come up my street. And it’s devastating for all of us, for us as a community. There’s the generational families that lost the homes that they were raised in, and they were raising their grandchildren in. Just the level of devastation, it’s unthinkable.”
‘Big Rock Burning’
Conscious Contact/Bird Street Productions
Big Rock Burning will hold an exclusive preview screening on Friday at Malibu City Hall, an event hosted by the Malibu Film Society and the City of Malibu. Following the City Hall screening, the film will have its Oscar-qualifying theatrical run September 12-18 at the Laemmle in Santa Monica.
Shortly after Big Rock Burning wrapped production, footage of the documentary was presented to buyers at the Cannes Film Festival. Goldblum said in a statement in May, “People are grieving, but they also want accountability. How was a city like Los Angeles so catastrophically unprepared for something we were warned about again and again?”
Lake echoes those sentiments.
Burned homes along the Pacific Coast Highway in the Malibu area of Los Angeles County on January 9, 2025.
Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images
“I’m really, really hopeful that this film is going to shed some light and raise awareness and that none of us are really protected by this city — this city that we pay so much in taxes to,” she comments. “It’s shocking to think that the infrastructure was not there to protect us that day, even though they had the warnings. I don’t know who to blame. I’m not one to point fingers, I just know we were all let down.”
Lake tells us, “I don’t want people to feel sorry for me… It could have been so much worse for my husband and me, and we got our dog out… This film is really shedding light on so many people’s stories that didn’t have as a good an outcome as we have. But I really am honored to join forces with this beautiful group of people that are sharing a really important story.”
While she is keeping the focus on others, Lake remains acutely conscious of what she lost in the inferno.
“I lost all my memorabilia from Hairspray, my first film. My script that was signed by every cast member, including Divine, I had it for 38 years. It’s gone,” she says. “My outfits [from Hairspray], my photo albums, my grandparents’ photo albums, my children’s, my artwork, you name it, we lost it… We weren’t planning to leave. We were planning to stay to fight the fire. We didn’t pack; we didn’t plan ahead. Looking back on it, that’s what really kind of makes me kick myself and makes me really upset because we could have taken truckloads, we could have gotten tons of stuff out, but we didn’t know how dangerous it was. We didn’t know.”
Ricki Lake
Courtesy of Ricki Lake
Lake and her husband moved to New York after the destruction of their Malibu home. After much consideration, they have decided to rebuild on the ruins of what was.
“I am determined, and I will be back,” Lake declares. “I’m 56. I’m going to be 57 soon. I want to be back on my land having my 60th birthday party. That is my hope. I have a little more than three years to make that happen. So, we’ll see. I think it’s a realistic goal.”
