Burning an Illusion

The feature film debut of Barbados-born filmmaker Menelik Shabazz (1954-2021) was the second made by a black director in the UK after Horace Ové's PRESSURE. Also shooting in Notting Hill and Ladbroke Grove, the founder of the Ceddo Film and Video Workshop chose a social realist approach to portray the realities of Black British life from a female perspective. The plot centers on the 22-year-old office worker Pat (Cassie McFarlane), who initially longs for a conventional life as a married middle-class woman. But then she begins a relationship with the charismatic but moody Del (Victor Romero Evans) and after he is imprisoned after a violent altercation with the police, she becomes increasingly interested in the Black Power movement. BURNING AN ILLUSION was made as a reaction to the socio-political tensions of the '70s and '80s under Thatcher's Conservative government. German premiere of the BFI's 2K restoration.