Born in Flames / Stranger Inside

Admission is free. No advance reservations. Your seat will be assigned to you when you pick up your ticket at the box office. Seats are assigned on a first come, first served basis. The box office opens one hour before the event.

Born in Flames

U.S., 1983

This radical, post-punk vision of feminist revolt is set in a dystopian New York a decade after a failed social-democratic revolution. When Adelaide Norris, founder of the Women’s Army, is mysteriously killed, women across race, class and sexual orientation unite to challenge a government bent on repression. Shot guerrilla-style on the streets of 1980s pre-gentrified New York, on a $40,000 budget, over five years, the film is a fierce DIY manifesto and unforgettable entry in the canon of science fiction genre films. It remains a landmark of feminist cinema — visionary and startlingly urgent.

DCP, color, 80 min. Director/Screenwriter: Lizzie Borden. With: Jean Satterfield.

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.

Stranger Inside

U.S., 2001

Cheryl Dunye’s Stranger Inside is a raw, gripping women’s prison drama starring Yolonda Ross as Treasure, a young butch who commits a crime to reunite with her lifer mother, Brownie (Davenia McFadden). By engaging and reshaping women-in-prison film conventions, Dunye centers incarcerated Black lesbians and their family ties rather than crime or punishment. This constitutes “a radical act — to center Black queer women behind bars, on their own terms,” says Dunye. Through its intimate focus and Dunye’s auteurist vision, the film reframes a marginalized community, blending maternal melodrama and genre subversion into a landmark of American independent cinema.

DCP, color, 97 min. Director/Screenwriter: Cheryl Dunye. With: Yolonda Ross, Davenia McFadden.

—guest programmer Kathleen McHugh