Directed by Lizzie Borden • 1983 • United States
Starring Honey, Adele Bertei, Jean Satterfield
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.
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