Black lives matter.

BURDEN bears witness.

Starting with a smashing scene, BURDEN is the sad and sorry tale of Michael Burden, a white trash returned serviceman who repatriates to his home town of Laurens, South Carolina, as a repo man and a Klansman.

The smashing scene at the start of BURDEN is the commencement of a renovation of the old Echo theatre, to be provocatively transformed into the first Ku Klux Klan museum. An orphan, Mike was adopted by local grand wizard, Tom Griffin, and indoctrinated into the Klan, and he sees nothing wrong with a museum memorialising oppressive segregationists, cross burning bigots, and lynch mob mentalities.

Mick, a sad, sick and sorry oyster that as yet has not produced a pearl, falls for a white trash single mum, Judy, whose negative view of the Klan is not clandestine. She offers an ultimatum. Mike must choose between her between the sheets or his sheet shrouded buddies.

Mick chooses Judy and the fallout is calamitous. He loses his job and his home, forcing him to seek succour from the local black preacher, Kennedy, a move that brings conflict into the Kennedy clan as animosity between white supremacists and the black congregation escalates.

Based on a true story, BURDEN looks at the bitter reality that bigotry is a learned cycle of behaviour and the breaking of that cycle is a slow and seemingly insurmountable problem.

Written and directed by Andrew Heckler and shot by Australian cinematographer, Jeremy Rouse, BURDEN boasts strong performances by Garrett Hedlund as Mike, Andrea Riseborough as Judy, Forest Whitaker as Kennedy and Tom Wilkinson as Griffin.

An earnest examination of the environment that allows the enmity between the races in America, of the aspirational aspect of the American Dream that fails to materialise for many poor, white people, and believing they are above the black people, gives them some sort of solace, albeit hateful and hideous.

BURDEN is available to rent via Foxtel Store till July 4.