BURN

BURN: One Year on the Front Lines of the Battle to Save Detroit is an award-winning documentary that captures the extraordinary work of the Detroit Fire Department during one of the most punishing chapters in the city's history. Directed by Tom Putnam and Brenna Sanchez and executive produced by Denis Leary, the film embeds with the firefighters of Engine Company 50 - one of the busiest and most under-resourced firehouses in America - as they battle a perfect storm of urban collapse: tens of thousands of abandoned buildings, one of the highest arson rates in the country, and a city sliding toward bankruptcy. Through intimate, character-driven cinematography, BURN follows the men who run toward the flames the rest of the world runs from, telling the story of a city through the eyes of the people sworn to save it.

Filmed over a year of deep immersion inside the Detroit Fire Department, running at multiple firehouses across the city, BURN captures the full weight of the job - the training, the loss, the brotherhood, and the life-and-death decisions made in seconds. The film premiered at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival, where it won the Heineken Audience Award for Best Documentary, went on to a nationwide theatrical run, and later streamed on Netflix. It holds a 100% critics' rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 7.4 on IMDb, with reviewers calling it “an emotional character study of a group of heroic, yet very human, individuals.” For Mind Shift, BURN remains a defining example of the work we care about most: honest, cinematic storytelling that honors those who answer the call.

Mind Shift was contracted to shoot and provide production support for BURN and BURN X.