Something went wrong
Try again later.
On May 13, 1985, a longtime feud between the City of Philadelphia and the Black Liberation organization, MOVE came to a deadly climax. This dramatic tragedy unfolds through an extraordinary visual record previously withheld from the public.
19 August 1938, Seaboard, North Carolina, USA
5 January 1944, New York City, New York, USA
19 December 1971, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
June 13, 2014
[This historic footage -- from newsreels, TV stations once-live coverage, from several investigating commissions -- has been edited, brilliantly into a coherent, important political film.
May 13, 2014
[Osder] cuts between news footage of the events as they unfurled and testimony from hearings held afterward to create a stark, nonjudgmental portrait of an incident that probably needn't have happened.
January 23, 2014
"Let the Fire Burn" offers a searing picture of how dumb and dangerous humans can be.
June 13, 2014
Director Jason Osder's grieving account of the deadly police assault on the MOVE collective's fortified Philadelphia row house works small, continuous miracles with a variety of existing footage.
December 10, 2013
It's scary as both a movie and a still-reverberating moment in time.
November 14, 2013
Apart from the score and the very occasional basic intertitle to help us along, all we see and hear is footage from the day. We're immersed in the present of this world.
November 07, 2013
It's gripping and shocking.
February 17, 2014
Let The Fire Burn is an incendiary documentary that uses archival footage to weave a compelling, all-important tale of tragedy bred from anger and misunderstanding.
May 13, 2014
It's a remarkably evenhanded telling of a story in which there could be no winners, using archival footage alone.
November 07, 2013
Mesmerizing and provocative, Burn creates an unnerving atmosphere of troubling decisions on both sides of the conflict, permitting the viewer to understand the thought process that went into the explosive endgame.
June 13, 2014
Jason Osder's stunning debut documentary offers a disturbing look at a forgotten tragedy.
December 06, 2013
Brilliantly edited, the film moves back and forth in time, first tracking the events leading up to the confrontation through news reports of the day.
