Let the Fire Burn
Crime & Punishment • 1h 35m
Directed by Jason Osder • Documentary • 2013 • 95 minutes
In the astonishingly gripping Let the Fire Burn, director Jason Osder has crafted that rarest of cinematic objects: a found-footage film that unfurls with the tension of a great thriller. On May 13, 1985, a longtime feud between the city of Philadelphia and controversial radical urban group MOVE came to a deadly climax. By order of local authorities, police dropped military-grade explosives onto a MOVE-occupied rowhouse. TV cameras captured the conflagration that quickly escalated—and resulted in the tragic deaths of eleven people (including five children) and the destruction of 61 homes. It was only later discovered that authorities decided to “...let the fire burn.” Using only archival news coverage and interviews, first-time filmmaker Osder has brought to life one of the most tumultuous and largely forgotten clashes between government and citizens in modern American history.
Up Next in Crime & Punishment
-
Stealing Rodin
Directed by Cristóbal Valenzuela Berríos • Documentary • 2017 • 80 minutes
In the style of Exit Through the Gift Shop, Stealing Rodin is a critical and humorous statement about Art and the market around it. The documentary traces the story of Luis Onfray’s artistic and criminal act. In 2005, the...
-
Excellent Cadavers
Directed by Marco Turco • Documentary • 2006 • 92 minutes
Based on the book by Italian-American author Alexander Stille and featuring the photos of Sicilian photojournalist Letizia Battaglia, EXCELLENT CADAVERS chronicles the recent history of the Mafia and its integral—and seemingly ineradicabl...
-
The Resolute
Directed by Giovanni Donfrancesco • Documentary • 2017 • 159 minutes
An 87-year-old Italian who has retired to the woods of Vermont meets a filmmaker and seizes the occasion to look back on his long life. Wartime memories long suppressed trigger recollections of his inconvenient past as a child ...
