Welcome to Leith is a superb new documentary chronicling a story stranger than fiction: the real, attempted takeover of a small town in north Dakota by a notorious white supremacist, Craig Cobb.
Interviewing both the residents of Leith and the white supremacists at the heart of the action, the film examines both this particular incident, a struggle to overcome unwelcome extremism, and also the general psychology of a small, remote community under duress.
It at times feels like a horror film with its sinister score and bleakly beautiful shots of Fargo-esque plains. But the horror here is all too real: the grim, violent hatred at the heart of neo-Nazism.
In a time when gun crime, racism, social paranoia and xenophobia enhanced by terrorism (and its political exploitation) are key narratives in US public life – they’re likely to be cornerstones of the upcoming election in 2016 – this is a timely, resonant and deeply compelling film.