burning an illusion
Dir. Menelik Shabazz | Cast: Cassie McFarlane, Victor Romero Evans, Beverley Martin | 1981
2 Dec | Unseen Cinema, Nairobi
a young Black woman’s search for identity
Pat, a first-generation Black British woman, meets and gets into a serious relationship with Del, a charming Caribbean immigrant.
Independent and middle-class, Pat’s idealised Western living is at odds with Del’s working-class reality. Throughout the film, Pat and Del’s convictions are put to the test, shifting Pat’s perspective on romance and life in Britain.
Building on its coming-of-age, young-love premise, Burning an Illusion seamlessly weaves in heavier themes of Black British identity, cultural assimilation, and racial tensions in multicultural Britain.
Directed by Menelik Shabazz, Burning an Illusion was the first British film to centre a Black woman, and the second film made by a Black director in the UK. Born in Barbados, Menelik Shabazz was a pioneer of Black British filmmaking, co-founding the Creddo Film and TV Workshop, a production collective that produced afro-centric film and TV content.
Identity And the Creation of Home
Cultural identity is a complex idea, and it sits at the centre of Burning an Illusion. Though Black people have been part of Britain’s history for centuries, the arrival of Caribbean migrants after World War II gave rise to what we now know as Black British identity. This identity was forged at a moment when the question of who could truly call themselves “British” cast a shadow over a generation seeking to build new lives far from their families and the lives they knew.At the centre of this story are the children of the Windrush generation. Growing up in the UK meant they had to navigate a delicate balance between belonging and exclusion, in Britain and in the Caribbean. Theirs was a search for an identity that is both authentically British and rooted in their Caribbean culture.To give depth and context to their experiences, I’ve curated a selection of films from a cohort of Black British filmmakers whose work powerfully captures the formation and expression of Black British cultural identity.pressure
Pressure (Dir. Horace Ove) The first black dynamic feature-length film featuring a second generation Black British teenager whose parents and older siblings were born in Trinidad. Pressure explores the clashing generational points of view on racism, the struggles of trying to fit into a racial unjust society.windrush (BBC Documentary)
Produced by David Upshal, Windrush celebrates the 50th anniversary of the arrival in Britain of the HMT Empire Windrush, the ship that brought the first significant wave of post-war West Indian immigrants. Windrush highlights the Black British experience . HANDSWORTH SONGS
This is John Akomfrah's documentary examining the 1985 riots in London and Birmingham's Handsworth district: riots that erupted in reaction to the repressive policing of Black communities.