Film Review: Hell Has No Fire Escape

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Hell Has No Fire Escape is filmed over five years using a cinéma vérité style with outstanding effect.

Born in South Africa, raised in Australia and now based in London, co-director and co-writer, Georgina Savage goes back to South Africa to discover the engrossing story of  63-year-old Pastor Ina Dry in the brilliant feature documentary, Hell Has No Fire Escape, which was the closing night film of this year’s Adelaide Film Festival.

Co-directed and co-written by South Australian Matthew Bate, in Hell Has No Fire Escape Savage travels to a drug rehabilitation centre far away from the South African big cities on the side of a main highway in the desert. The centre is run by evangelical 63-year-old widow Pastor Ina Dry who inherited it from her controlling and dominating husband. 

With her loyal and long-term friend Rita, Ina runs the centre with tight control over the patients but the centre has fallen on hard times and struggles financially with their accreditation being allowed to lapse as they can no longer afford properly certified staff. The remaining staff do the best with what they have, particularly still trying to help those struggling with addiction by replacing their dependencies with religious fervor. Some of the patients however, see the shortcomings of the centre and the treatment they are receiving.

Ina, who is now free of her subjugating husband, longs to find a new love and express her desires. She discovers the freedoms of the internet and embraces Tik Tok where she receives messages from and is catfished by someone she believes to be the real Jason Momoa. This relationship has consequences for the centre.

Savage and Bate treat all participants with respect and Savage herself even adds parts of her own life story in solidarity with Ina’s situation. Hell Has No Fire Escape is filmed over five years in a cinéma vérité style which Savage and Bate use with outstanding effect. They also incorporate a sense of the harsh South African landscape. 

Hell Has No Fire Escape screened as part of this year’s Adelaide Film Festival and there will be encore screenings of this and other Festival highlights this week.

More information about the Adelaide Film Festival is available here: