About the film
Detroit firefighters risk their lives every day to save a city and an American dream that many have written off as dead.
BURN
— BY Tom Putnam and Brenna Sanchez
status
Completed
type
Nonfiction
year
2012
director
Tom Putnam and Brenna Sanchez
producers
Brenna Sanchez, Tom Putnam
Synopsis
Detroit is an iconic city. Go anywhere in the world, say “Detroit,” and it strikes a set of images – Motown, Hockeytown, Chrysler, Ford, General Motors, 8 Mile ‚Ķ Also crime, foreclosures, poverty, white flight, race ‚Ķ and fire. But these are mere snapshots, glimpses into a deeper, more complex panorama. No one understands this better than the people literally putting out the fires, battling every day in an uncertain war. BURN is a character-driven documentary about Detroit, told through the eyes of Detroiters who are on the front lines trying to rescue and rebuild it. BURN will follow the firefighters, the men and women charged with the thankless task of saving a city that many have written off as dead.
About the team
Tom Putnam (Director/Producer) Tom Putnam’s short films and features have played over 400 film festivals and have been released worldwide. His projects for PBS include producing the critically acclaimed documentary feature Marwencol, winner of the Grand Jury Award for Best Documentary at the 2010 SXSW Film Festival and two Independent Spirit Awards. Other credits include the documentary Red White Black & Blue for the Emmy-winning PBS series “Independent Lens.” His short films include Broadcast 23, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, and Tom Hits His Head, one of the most widely seen short films of all time. He also was named “One of the 25 New Faces of Independent Film” by Filmmaker Magazine.
Brenna Sanchez (Director/Producer) Detroit native Brenna Sanchez is a documentary filmmaker specializing in music, adventure and cultural projects. She got her start in as a writer and editor for the award-winning monthly magazines Orbit, Hour Detroit, and Raygun, the cutting-edge music magazine. She has worked on such films as Hank Williams: Honky Tonk Blues (PBS), The Highwaymen (CMT), The Joy of Lex (Discovery), The Cool School (PBS), about the LA art scene of the 1960s, SEARCH AND DESTROY: Iggy & The Stooges’ RAW POWER (Sony), and Johnny Cash’s America (Sony/A&E IndieFilms), which was nominated for a 2010 Grammy Award. BURN is her directorial debut.
BURN is a Cinereach grantee.