Born in Flames

One of American cinema's great acts of rebellion. One very special guest.

Experience Born in Flames in a recent restoration, with director Lizzie Borden joining us in person from Los Angeles.

In a near-future New York ruled by a government that claims to represent the people while perpetuating inequality and repression, women begin organising across racial, social and political divides. Through pirate radio broadcasts, underground networks and acts of direct resistance, they challenge a system that has failed them — and begin to imagine a different world.

Bold, anarchic and fiercely independent, Born in Flames tears up the rulebook of political filmmaking. Blending fake news reports, surveillance footage, documentary-style sequences, pirate radio and unexpected musical interludes, Lizzie Borden creates a cinematic uprising that blurs the line between fiction and reality. Its restless, guerrilla energy is inseparable from its politics: this is a film that doesn't just talk about resistance — it practises it.

Made on a shoestring in the streets of 1970s and early 1980s New York, with a community of collaborators that included future filmmakers Kathryn Bigelow and Pat Murphy, Born in Flames became a landmark of underground American cinema. Its vision of feminist solidarity, racial and class injustice, and the fragility of supposedly democratic systems remains as provocative — and unsettlingly relevant — as ever.

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HONORARY DISRUPTOR AWARD: LIZZIE BORDEN IN CONVERSATION

In 1983, Lizzie Borden directed Born in Flames, a semi-dystopian, feminist call to arms to regain power in the face of an authoritarian regime. In conversation with filmmaker Pat Murphy, Lizzie Borden will look back on her visionary film, and draw parallels between her astute political vision from back then, and today’s world in flames.

Guests: Lizzie Borden; Pat Murphy; Moderator: Maureen Gueunet