Directed by Lizzie Borden | USA | 80 min

The first feature film by iconoclastic artist Lizze Borden, Born in Flames was shot guerilla style on weekends in pre-gentrification New York over a period of five years. Set ten years after a socialist-democratic revolution in the United States, the film explores the ways that marginalized groups such as women, people of colour, and queer people continued to be targeted and suppressed, and the efforts of community-organized intersectional groups to fight back. The film follows two women-run pirate radio stations, a women’s revolutionary army, and a socialist newspaper and focuses on the role that communication and direct action play in combating the propaganda of the ruling authorities. With a punk soundtrack and rebel sensibility, Born in Flames reminds us just how long the fight for equality for these marginalized groups has been ongoing and how far it has yet to go. We dedicate this film to women, people of colour, and LGBTQ people in Alberta and around the world who continue to fight against governments that seek to minimize them, imprison them, and erase them.

 

Written by Ben Rowe.

 

Part of our Cinema of Resistance Series.

 

 

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In the spirit of respect, reciprocity and truth, we honour and acknowledge that this screening takes place on Moh’kinsstis and the traditional Treaty 7 territory, as well as the oral practices of the Blackfoot confederacy: Siksika, Kainai, Piikani as well as the Îyâxe Nakoda and Tsuut’ina nations. We acknowledge that this territory is home to the Otipemisiwak Métis Government of the Métis Nation within Alberta District 6. Finally, we acknowledge all Nations, Indigenous and non, who live, work and play, as well as help steward this land, honour and celebrate this territory.