Bears in Hot Tubs

Bears in Hot Tubs is an award-winning short observational documentary co-created with Maddie Bear and her wild kin, a family of black bears navigating the suburban landscapes of Los Angeles. What began as a film about bears became a film about relationships: between humans and wild animals, between fear and curiosity, and between the stories we inherit and the more compassionate futures we might choose to build.

Supported by The Puffin Foundation, the project explores what it means to live alongside urban wildlife in a changing climate and expanding human landscape. Through Maddie’s movements, choices, and presence, the film invites audiences to see bears not as intruders or problems to be managed, but as intelligent, sentient neighbors with their own lives, relationships, and ways of knowing.

The film had its world premiere as an Official Selection of the 2026 Wild & Scenic Film Festival in Nevada City, California, and has continued to screen through festivals and community events across the United States and internationally. Awards and recognitions include Best Documentary Short, Best Environmental Film, Favorite Documentary, Best Science & Climate Change Documentary, and multiple Awards of Merit.

The film is part of a larger co-thriving impact project that uses art, storytelling, education, and community conversation to shift public perception of wild animals. Rather than framing coexistence as simple tolerance, Bears in Hot Tubs asks what shared responsibility can look like in practice. How do our behaviors shape the lives of the animals around us? What would it mean to design communities with bears, not just around them? And how might storytelling help us move from conflict and control toward care, attentiveness, and mutual flourishing?

The Puffin Foundation’s support helped make it possible to complete and share this work as part of a growing outreach effort that includes festival screenings, public discussions, educational materials, and the development of Maddie Bear: A Game of Co-Thriving. Together, these pieces invite people of all ages to rethink human-wildlife relationships and imagine new ways of living with the wild beings already among us.

Co-thriving begins with us.