Born in Flames (The Criterion Collection) [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 BLU-RAY 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