DVD Review: Welcome To Leith

Welcome To Leith is an engaging, fascinating and frightening documentary about a very small community in North Dakota that suddenly becomes the home to white supremacists. The film opens with shots of a desolate town and the sounds of frantic calls to the police. We are given a bit of background on the area by the town’s mayor, Ryan Schock, who tells us he was on the town council since the age of sixteen, and that the town is three square miles with only twenty-four residents. “There’s only one business left here,” he says. And yes, it’s a bar.

The film introduces us to some of the town’s residents before we meet Craig Cobb, a leader in the white supremacist movement who bought several plots of land in Leith with the intention of turning the town into a haven for racists. He posted notices online urging white supremacists to move there, telling them it was a place they could quickly control politically. And already being aware of how small the population is, we know that Cobb is right, and that is frightening. The film is able to get close to Cobb as well as to the town’s other residents, which is what makes the film so fascinating. When asked where his hatred comes from, Cobb answers, “We hate that which threatens that which we love.”

Cobb donated one of the buildings he purchased to the National Socialist Movement, one of the largest neo-Nazi groups in the country. The film interviews Jeff Schoep, one of the leaders of that group (there is a shot of him and Cobb giving the Nazi salute). It’s amazing to me that there are still people who proudly call themselves Nazis. They seem like lonely, sad children who want to play dress-up, and decide specifically to play the villains. Just watch that town meeting scene, with the three NSM members standing in the front of the room. They look like ostracized, weak children posing as stronger people. It would all be laughable if these sad little losers weren’t also violent.

Kynan Dutton seems to be the most pathetic of all. Look at his sad attempt to replicate the Hitler mustache. You can tell he was a guy who was picked on in school and probably had no friends. So of course he’s going to latch onto any group that will embrace him. He and his wife and children are racists who move to Leith and live on Cobb’s property, which has no running water. Cobb encourages newly released white inmates to come to Leith, posting messages like “Come now, skins and federal prison grads!” and “The streets will run deep in the blood of our enemies, some whites among them.” And that is even scarier, because he’s deliberately reaching out to a violent segment of the population, and encouraging violence from them. So when the town’s people react in fear, you can hardly blame them.

What is also interesting is that because these days everyone has cameras, both sides of this battle are constantly filming everything. And this documentary actually includes footage shot by the racists. Particularly frightening is the footage shot by Dutton’s wife, which shows Dutton and Cobb walking down the town’s streets carrying rifles, engaging in shouting matches with other people.

Special Features

The DVD contains some bonus material, including Separatist, a short film by Michael Beach Nichols and Christopher K. Walker, presented by the New York Times Op-Docs. This focuses on Kynan Dutton, and includes some footage that made it into the feature film. He and his wife talk about why they want whites to be separate from those with other skin tones.

The special features also include an interview with Mark Potok, of the Southern Poverty Law Center. He talks about that organization, and about hate groups. There is one deleted scene which features an interview with Jeremy Kelly, who organized opposition to the white supremacists, and also an extended scene of the burning of Cobb’s wooden signs. There are also short biographies of the filmmakers.

Welcome To Leith was directed by Michael Beach Nichols and Christopher K. Walker, and was released on DVD today (February 9, 2016) through First Run Features.