Born In Flames

Lizzie Borden: Born In Flames (1983) starring Honey as Honey, host of the Phoenix Radio.

Lizzie Borden at Helsinki Film Festival: Love & Anarchy, 1993.

Kaisa Lassinaro : Born In Flames (2011). A book to Lizzie Borden's film. Published in UK, printed in Belgium. Cassochrome : Occasional Papers, 2011. ISBN: 978-0-9562605-9-8

Född i flammor.
    US © 1983 Lizzie Borden.
    P+D: Lizzie Borden. SC: Lizzie Borden – story and editing consultant: Ed Bowes. Cin: Ed Bowes, Al Santana – 16 mm – colour – mono – 1,33:1. Add. camera incl.: Chris Hegedus. Video of Women in Desert: Phil O'Reilly. SFX: Hisa Tayo / Hisao Taya. Graphics: Dirk Zimmer. Video graphics: Jo Bonney. M: see soundtrack listing beyond the jump break. ED: Lizzie Borden. Special thanks to: Marvin Soloway. And Chris Hegedus, D. A. Pennebaker et al. Produced with assistance from: The Jerome Foundation / C.A.P.S. / Young Filmmakers.
CAST from Wikipedia:
    Honey as Honey, host of the Phoenix Radio
    Adele Bertei [from the bands The Bloods and The Contortions] as Isabel, host of the Radio Ragazza
    Jean Satterfield as Adelaide Norris
    Florynce Kennedy [civil right lawyer and activist] (credited as "Flo Kennedy") as Zella Wylie
    Becky Johnston as Becky Dunlop, newspaper editor
    Pat Murphy as Pat Crosby, newspaper editor
    Kathryn Bigelow [the director] as Kathy Larson, newspaper editor
    Hillary Hurst as the leader of Women's Army
    Sheila McLaughlin as other leader
    Marty Pottenger as other leader/woman at site
    Lynn Jones as other leader
    Bell Chevigny as Belle Gayle, the talk show host
    Joel Kovel as the talk show guest
    Ron Vawter as FBI Agent
    John Coplans as chief
    John Rudolph as TV newscaster
    Warner Schreiner as TV newscaster
    Valerie Smaldone as TV newscaster
    Hal Miller as detective
    Bill Tatum as Mayor Zubrinsky
    Mark Boone Jr. as man in subway harassing woman
    Merían Soto as rape victim
    The first screen appearance of Eric Bogosian (as a technician at a TV station who is forced at gunpoint to run a videotape on the network feed.
    Story contributor Ed Bowes portrays the head of the socialist newspaper that ultimately fires the female journalists.
    The title of the film comes from the music record: Red Crayola: "Born In Flames" (Rough Trade, vinyl 7", GB 1980).
    The director, born Linda Elizabeth Borden, took the name Lizzie Borden from the Massachusetts suspected double murderer Lizzie Borden (1860–1927).
    Festival premiere: 20 Feb 1983 Berlin International Film Festival.
    US premiere: 9 Nov 1983.
    Festival premiere in Finland: 1993 Helsinki Film Festival, in the presence of Lizzie Borden.
    2016 restoration in 35 mm: premiere: Feb 2016 Anthology Film Archives, followed by a world tour.
    Corona lockdown viewings / Women Make Film / Black Lives Matter.
    From the Draken Film platform without subtitles.
    Viewed at a forest retreat in Punkaharju on a tv screen, 25 July 2020.

AA: I saw for the first time Born in Flames by Lizzie Borden. It was so much ahead of its time 37 years ago that it is still ahead of its time.

It is a militant piece of feminist futurism.

It is science fiction shot in newsreel style.

It is a key text in Lesbian cinema and Black feminism highlighting a range of issues including independent radio, police surveillance, police harassment and police brutality.

It has been created using the idioms of "the other cinema", "the third cinema" and the countercultural cinema of the era. It is an energetic collage of disparate visual discourses. It is a sum of its contradictions but never confused or chaotic.

It is a piece of media critique, a meta-film, a montage of surveillance tapes, enacted news bulletins, talk shows and staged vérité. A key phrase in the dialogue: "The most important thing is the media".

The soundtrack is a wonderful and passionate compilation of underground, punk, gospel, jazz, rhythm'n'blues and soul.

A Social Democratic war of liberation has taken place ten years ago. New York has a Black mayor, and the President of the US is a Socialist. But discrimination based on race, class and gender goes on.

The scenes of sexual harassment, discrimination and belittling of women and outright sexual violence have lost nothing of their topicality. Women organize self-defense patrols. When women's radio stations (Phoenix Radio and Radio Ragazza) are destroyed, the nonviolent activist groups move towards a guerrilla stance including military exercise and practice at shooting ranges.

The film ends with an explosion on the top of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center – the Women's Army has detonated the antenna of the establishment's television channel.

What I saw was presumably the renowned 2016 restoration of Born in Flames. It has been rendered with good judgement. The gritty sense of the original 16 mm cinematography is conveyed even in a digital presentation on a tv screen.

PS. 24 Oct 2020. Lizzie Borden makes film like Jimi Hendrix played the guitar.

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK:

WIKIPEDIA: PLOT

"The plot concerns two feminist groups in New York City, each voicing their concerns to the public by pirate radio. One group, led by an outspoken white lesbian, Isabel (Adele Bertei), operates "Radio Ragazza". The other group, led by a soft-spoken African-American, Honey (Honey), operates "Phoenix Radio." The local community is stimulated into action after a world-traveling political activist, Adelaide Norris (Jean Satterfield), is arrested upon arriving at a New York City airport, and suspiciously dies while in police custody. Also, there is a Women's Army led by Hilary Hurst (Hilary Hurst) and advised by Zella (Flo Kennedy) that initially both Honey and Isabel refuse to join. This group, along with Norris and the radio stations, are under investigation by a callous FBI agent (Ron Vawter). Their progress is tracked by three editors (Becky Johnston, Pat Murphy, Kathryn Bigelow) for a socialist newspaper, who go so far they get fired."

"The story involves several different women coming from different perspectives and attempts to show several examples of how sexism plays out on the street, and how it can be dealt with through direct action. At one point, two men attack a woman on the street, and dozens of women on bicycles with whistles come to chase the men away and comfort the woman. The movie shows women, despite their various differences, organizing in meetings, doing radio shows, creating art, wheatpasting, putting a condom on a penis, wrapping raw chicken at a processing plant, etc. The film portrays a world rife with violence against women, high female unemployment, and government oppression. The women in the film start to come together to make a bigger impact, by means that some would call terrorism."

"Ultimately, after both radio stations are suspiciously burned down, Honey and Isabel team up and broadcast "Phoenix Ragazza Radio" from stolen U-Haul vans. They also join the Women's Army, which sends a group of terrorists to interrupt a broadcast of the President of the United States proposing that women be paid to do housework, followed by bombing the antenna on top of the World Trade Center to prevent additionally destructive messages from the mainstream." (Wikipedia)