Lizzie Bor­den reflects on her vital fem­i­nist sci-fi Born in Flames

“I made Born in Flames in 1983 for about $70,000. It came out of that New York new wave scene which includ­ed women like Bette Gor­don, but was more polit­i­cal. It was con­tro­ver­sial for a num­ber of rea­sons… there was some con­tro­ver­sy about whether I had the right to make a film about black women and because along the way I was giv­en a cou­ple of grants. Because it was dur­ing the Rea­gan admin­is­tra­tion peo­ple were angry that I had got­ten any grants at all for this kind of movie. It’s now hav­ing a renais­sance because of Don­ald Trump. Who knew things could be worse for women now than back then in terms of poli­cies? I was so angry when I made it – now I think women are angry all over again and reclaim­ing that in a new way.

“Grow­ing up, I didn’t want to be like my moth­er. I had a very dom­i­neer­ing father who would not let my moth­er work. She want­ed to be a French teacher and he wouldn’t allow it. There was a cer­tain way I was taught about how women should act around boys. I think the arti­fi­cial­i­ty of that and the rules made me realise I had to make a stand. I was try­ing to become a painter but then I made Born in Flames as an act of rebel­lion. Part of the film is about try­ing to have a sense of self. At the moment cul­ture works in two dif­fer­ent ways. We have shows like Trans­par­ent, about gen­der and iden­ti­ty pol­i­tics and being able to choose who you are, and on the oth­er hand there are total­ly repres­sive things hap­pen­ing. Women have not gone back­ward because you grow up think­ing you can do any­thing now, but still there’s so much inequal­i­ty with pay, health­care, the way women are treat­ed and rape culture.

“I was politi­cised by the sec­ond wave of fem­i­nism and I learnt about it through films and through women and men doing per­for­mance art. Fem­i­nism is a pow­er­ful word and no mat­ter where you’re com­ing from we can all agree that rape cul­ture is wrong. That came out so vivid­ly in the last year when Don­ald Trump talked about grab­bing pussies. Nobody analysed what lock­er room talk was and how harm­ful it was to women. There’s so much con­flict in our cul­ture and that anger is grow­ing. Look at all these young women going on demon­stra­tion march­es and the men who are involved and who wit­ness it and will hope­ful­ly grow up to be dif­fer­ent. I think a younger gen­er­a­tion of women have been politi­cised because of what is happening.

“Hav­ing agency and con­trol over our own bod­ies is still an issue. I’ve been try­ing to make a film for about 25 years about abor­tion but find­ing it very dif­fi­cult to get fund­ing. The men who make deci­sions about our bod­ies have no idea how they work. Women have to jump through hoops to get cer­tain things through their health­care. In cer­tain states to get an abor­tion is a ques­tion of class, women with mon­ey can afford to get one but women with­out mon­ey can­not. It’s unob­tain­able. There’s so many things to be angry about right now. The cur­rent gov­ern­ment have an anti-female agenda.

“‘Born in Flames’ the song was all about the work­ing class. I want­ed to make some­thing inspir­ing, some­thing that peo­ple would remem­ber. I love Pussy Riot and I think they embody the spir­it of Born in Flames. I love what they did and that after they were jailed they went around talk­ing about it and how the gov­ern­ment got so upset about what these women were doing. That’s what Born in Flames is about, then and now.”

Born in Flames screens at the Edin­burgh Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val on 1 July. For more info vis­it edfilm​fest​.org​.uk