Brimstone & Glory

The Ritual, Danger and Beauty of Fireworks

The National Pyrotechnic Festival in Tultepec, Mexico is a site of festivity unlike any other in the world. In celebration of San Juan de Dios, patron saint of firework makers, revelry engulfs the town for ten days. Artisans show off their technical virtuosity, up-and-comers create their own rowdy, lo-fi combustibles, and dozens of teams build larger-than- life papier-mache bulls to parade into the town square, adorned with fireworks that blow up in all directions.

It is a celebration that anchors a way of life built around a generations-old, homegrown business of making fireworks by hand. For the people of Tultepec, the National Pyrotechnic Festival is explosive celebration, unrestrained delight and real peril.

Winner of Best Documentary at Austin Fantastic Fest and the San Francisco International Film Festival.

"Brimstone & Glory deftly captures the skill, passion and peril behind the fireworks, as well as the love of a family whose livelihood is rooted in this booming trade." - Lorraine Ali, Los Angeles Times