Welcome to Leith

This film definitely gets the conflict: a dying town receives new arrivals who they do not want. We see a lot of bad behavior, without seeing how it came about. We hear a lot about how people feel -- but not how they got there. We see a lot of things, but we don't see the causes; we can only accept what the film shows us.

In this way, "Welcome to Leith" is very much a shaped film about real people in a real event. Sympathy clearly exists for the townspeople, but we are also given good exposure to the newcomers, who present their views openly. Unexplored is how the behavior of the good townspeople is often worse than that of the prejudiced newcomers -- or is it? We don't know, but in this film we see property destruction only by one side, and it's not the newcomers.

Making issues more complicated, the arguments given by the old-timers only tangle things further; we can imagine the same arguments happening in dying white towns receiving new non-white occupants. Sure, the answer feels obvious to all of us -- but you can't argue a feeling into a legal action ... or can you?

Perhaps the filmmakers realized all this; the title alone is ironic, since clearly the town of Leith is *not* welcoming these people. But in a free democracy, property up for sale can be bought by anyone interested. What we haven't figured out how to manage, is how to balance the rights of the existing inhabitants with those of the newcomers. "Welcome to Leith" shows this problem is still very much alive -- regardless of which side of the Sold sign you're standing on

As much as I hate white supremacists as well as any other intolerant movement this was interesting to watch as this documentary is very well made. There is footage from both sides of the town habitants. So I really can't agree with other reviewers claiming the white supremacist didn't get his say. Instead I thought he got plenty of air time to explain his case but the only thing you can witness is his faul and disgusting vision of life. In fact everything he says and does sums their narrow vision very well, they are all a bunch of intolerant retards that belong in jail or in a grave. The world would be better off without this kind of parasites that blaim everything that goes wrong in their pathetic life to Jewish or people of African origin. Craig Cobb, with his self declared high IQ, is in fact dumber than a box of rocks. His mate, sorry I forgot the retards name, is the exact specimen you can expect with these kind of people, low and uneducated white thrash with the only hability to reproduce alot and so to continue the lineage of dumbasses. The irony is that he sees himself as an Aryen, one of the pure white race. It's just too funny for words, for that you have to watch this documentary yourself so that you can witness what their Aryens are supposed to look like. Respect to all the people that opposed themselves to those scums of the earth. The documentary also shows how ridicule the first amendment is. Americans should be deeply ashamed to tolerate hate groups in their country. If you preach hate, violence and even extermination of another race you belong in jail, that's it. No first amendment should protecting that kind of behavior. Shame on you America.

This reminded me of Wild Wild Country where a band of renegades takes over a small town for their own nefarious purposes. Both end almost the same way. But Leith was only 2hrs vs WWC at 6 or 7.

It is a sad state when we can't or won't remember and learn from our own history. This movie does a pretty good job showcasing white supremists and their tactics and the struggle a little known town had to endure because these nuts were trying to prove something.

Well told and fast paced. Would totally recommend.

This is the documentary about the inhabitants of Leith, a small village/town in North Dakota. After finding out that Craig Cobb, a well known and infamous neo nazi are buying as much land as he possibly can in order to create some sort of village for his like minded, mentally challenged people aka other neo nazis. Basically, Cobb is trying to take over Leith.

It starts off pretty calmly, but after a while Cobb and his minions start to walk "patrols" in this small community while being armed with assault rifles and things escalate quicky. The movie is not only a testament to how hard the residents of Leith fought to get rid of a potentially dangerous group of individuals but it also gives a glimpse inside the narrow mind of Cobb and his followers. Why they would let themselves be portrayed like this for the world to see is beyond me, but in my experience alt-righters and neo nazis aren't very intelligent to begin with. If you haven't watched this, i recommend it strongly.

The negative reviews comes from deplorables who's afraid and/or ashamed of the truth. This movie is extremely well made, it's unbiased and we get to see both sides of the situation.

Welcome to Leith was well-received at its showing at Austin's SXSW Film Festival. The film documents the peculiar events that occurred in 2013-2014 when a nationally-known white supremacist Craig Cobb moves to tiny Leith, North Dakota (population: 24) with a plan to buy up land and take over city government and make it into some sort of center of white supremacy. Once alerted by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) the ordinary town folks mobilize to fight back and save their town from Cobb's nefarious plan.

The odd part of the story is that Cobb's plan seems to be legal. (When he and his partner are finally arrested they almost seem to have been provoked.) There is nothing illegal about buying land and moving into a town. And the first amendment allows him to express his beliefs and fly his Nazi flags no matter how evil and offensive those beliefs may be. The town residents actually seemed to be making excuses to get rid of him such as citing him for not having running water and a sewage system on his property.

Fundamentally, the film asks the question is democracy about the community making decisions by the will of the majority or is there a basic set of minimum beliefs about human equality that are necessary prerequisites to participate in democratic society? The majority of the town seemed to decide – really quite reasonably - that Cobb's noxious beliefs were so anti-egalitarian that they didn't want him and his cronies to live in their town. They are in some sense intolerant of his intolerant beliefs, but one can hardly blame them.

Welcome to Leith is beautifully filmed and the filmmakers maintain an impressive level of objectivity about their offensive subject. They let his evil beliefs discredit themselves rather than trying to paint Cobb as anything more than the pathetic nasty creature that he is. The townspeople come off as genuine and human. Perhaps it is a positive sign that this sort of racism is unacceptable even in one of the smallest most isolated corners of the United States. I hope that Welcome to Leith gets widely distributed so that many more people can enjoy this powerful film.