Man on Fire

Grand Saline, Texas was a sleepy, unremarkable town--until a white preacher lit himself on fire to protest the town's racism in 2014. The subject of this film is deceptively straight-forward: a minister commits suicide by setting himself on fire. He leaves behind a letter that frames his decision as a religious response to the intolerable racism of America's past and present, particularly in his Texas hometown. The aftermath is befuddling: there are townspeople who can recall incidents of racial violence and hate speech, and those who have never seen anything of the kind. Black folk in surrounding towns who share rumors and fears about acts of violence, and white folk who say you can't believe everything you hear. Fellow ministers who share the desire to be liberated from a racist past, and churchgoers who believe only mental illness could explain such a suicide. Reverend Moore's story, and this portrait of a small town desperate to bask in the twilight of white-washed American nostalgia, is also a prompt for all of us to examine our responsibilities. Whether religious or not, each successive generation inherits a history that must be reckoned with. Here is a film that hopefully will encourage you to find a language for this reckoning, and to speak it. (Slamdance Film Festival)