What You Gonna Do When The World's On Fire?

2018

2 hr. 3 min.

Documentary

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List

88%

48 Reviews

Tomatometer

64%

Fewer than 50 Ratings

Audience Score

During the summer of 2017, a string of brutal killings of black men in the United States sent shock waves throughout the country.

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Critics Consensus

What You Gonna Do When the World's On Fire? traces the aftershocks of race-motivated violence in thoughtful, impressionistic fashion.

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important insight into how systemic discrimination and escalation of the conflicts may look like. violence and abuse. community. poverty. erased histories. different ways of learning how to fight. violence and abuse of all kinds, on every level, from every source — internal, external, inherited, race-motivated, domineering, "educational", brought by regime, Ku Klux Klan, policemen, parents, siblings, ourselves. what are we gonna do when the world's on fire?

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

03/30/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Minervini's camera works magically in this film that does not feel like a documentary or fiction, what is better, it does not feel like a film, it makes us witnesses and participants in a black community in which racism has become, as for centuries, something to take care of yourself and others, because no one, and it is shown in one of the final sequences, is willing to take risks for them. It is an urgent documentary with its feet firmly on Earth and, I could assure you, suffers the curse of the documentary maker: Not being able to intervene directly of what you are seeing and still being aware that what you are doing is also important.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

02/27/23

Full Review

Audience Member

The movie presented the anger and hopelessness in 2017 after several black men were killed - whether by the Klan, the police, or just random violence.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

01/26/23

Full Review

Audience Member

It was an insteresting subject but the movie felt si redundant I couldn't avoid to fell asleep. Nothing happend and when something finally happened ir was towards the end.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

01/17/23

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Roberto Minervini

Director

Dorothy Hill

Actor

Paolo Benzi

Producer

Denise Ping Lee

Producer

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What You Gonna Do When the World's on Fire?: Teaser Trailer 1

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Gilbert Adair

Sight & Sound

World's on Fire never manages to bring the different elements of the narrative together. It's neither truly immersive nor is it able to establish a critical distance from its subjects

Rated: 6

Nov 15, 2019

Full Review

Wendy Ide

Observer (UK)

Beauty and chaos collide in this documentary by Roberto Minervini.

Rated: 4/5

Oct 20, 2019

Full Review

Phil Hoad

Guardian

In the film, shot with elegiac finality in black and white, Minervini makes subtle communitarian and intergenerational connections between the stories.

Rated: 3/5

Oct 17, 2019

Full Review

Serena Seghedoni

Loud and Clear Reviews

The characters we see belong to four different communities, but Minervini shows them to us with such honesty and empathy that we soon understand that the struggles they face are very similar and very real.

Nov 2, 2023

Full Review

Peter Canavese

Celluloid Dreams

Staggering...a vital snapshot of African American life as it's being lived on the margins of society...one of the best films I've seen by far this year.

Rated: 4/4

Jun 4, 2020

Full Review

Chris Barsanti

Eyes Wide Open

...weaves together a quartet of narratives about resilience in the face of mounting pressures.

Apr 17, 2020

Full Review

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Synopsis

During the summer of 2017, a string of brutal killings of black men in the United States sent shock waves throughout the country.

Director: Roberto Minervini
Production Co: Okta Film, RAI Cinema
Genre: Documentary
Original Language: English
Release Date (Streaming): Apr 6, 2020