Born in Flames (Blu-ray)

A blistering rallying cry issued loud, clear, and unapologetically queer, Lizzie Borden’s explosive postpunk provocation is a DIY fantasia of female rebellion set in America ten years after a revolution that supposedly transformed the country into a democratic socialist utopia. In reality, racism, sexism, and economic inequality are as virulent as ever, and a band of radicals—led by Black, lesbian, and working-class women—join forces to fight back. Told through a furiously fractured, kinetically edited flurry of television news broadcasts, pirate radio transmissions, agitprop, and protests shot guerrilla-style on the streets of New York City, Born in Flames is a shock wave of feminist futurism that’s both an essential document of its time and radically ahead of it.

DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
• 2K digital restoration—preserved by Anthology Film Archives, with restoration funding from the Golden Globe Foundation and The Film Foundation, and supervised and approved by director Lizzie Borden—with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
• Introduction by Borden
• New audio commentary featuring Borden; cast members Adele Bertei, Hillary Hurst, Sheila McLaughlin, Pat Murphy, Marty Pottenger, and Jeanne Satterfield; and camerapeople DeeDee Halleck and Chris Hegedus
• Regrouping (1976), Borden’s directorial debut, an experimental documentary about a New York City women’s group
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• PLUS: Essays by film scholar Yasmina Price and author So Mayer