City in Flames

Exit West meets Normal People in this moving dystopian love story eerily in tune with our times. At once evocative and propulsive, City in Flames is a love story about two isolated people with a deep yet fragile bond trying to find their way to each other while political disorder engulfs the world around them. Sara is a graduate student living away from home and struggling to finish her degree. When she kindles a long-distance relationship with Kevin, a disillusioned and apathetic IT worker, the two watch as the city that Kevin lives in, and Sara grew up in, slowly rises up against P., a recently elected populist leader. As protests escalate to a night of devastating fires, the impending political breakdown pushes Sara and Kevin’s relationship to the brink and leaves them torn between the turmoil of the present and a hope for the future, between their longing for connection and their terror of commitment. City in Flames offers a timely, intimate examination of our political moment, mixing the edge of Exit West and the modern romance of Normal People. It is a story that illuminates how people can grow separated from each other, the ways that these bonds can be healed and re-established, and how humans define themselves through their relationships with others.