Burning An Illusion, by Menelik Shabazz, will be screened at the Globe in Hay-on-Wye as part of Marva Lord's Orange Colored Sky Evening of songs and readings. TBA

A pioneering first feature from Menelik Shabazz, much of it shot around the Notting Hill and Ladbroke Grove communities, Burning an Illusion marked a coming-of-age for black British cinema. A film about transformation and identity, it is a love story that traces the emotional and political growth of a young black couple in Thatcher's London. It was the first British film to give a central voice to a black woman, charting her journey to emotional maturity, emancipation and political awakening.

Pat Williams, played by the award-winning Cassie McFarlane, is a London girl with a caring family, her own flat and a job that she enjoys, who looks forward to settling down to a comfortable married life. Her dream is shattered when she meets Del (Victor Romero), a charming but vaguely discontented toolmaker, who soon moves in and then loses his job causing them both to challenge their assumptions about each other and their aspirations.

Burning an Illusion won the Grand Prix at the Amiens Film Festival in France and Cassie McFarlane won the Evening Standard Award for 'Most Promising New Actress'.

Extras
* Filmed introduction with Menelik Shabazz.
* Commentary with Menelik Shabazz, Cassie McFarlane and Victor Romero.
* Short film: Blood Ah Goh Run (Menelik Shabazz, 1982).
* 8-page illustrated booklet containing film notes by Bonnie Greer, director biography, film review, Black Pioneers - an essay by Inge Blackman, and credits.
* Student notes written by Joel Karamath have also been made available by the BFI to support study of this film.

Review from DVD Times
Burning an Illusion was only the second British feature to have been made by a black director following Horace Ové’s Pressure. That particular work was released in 1976, a full five years earlier. In the meantime there had been Anthony Simmons’ Black Joy and Franco Rosso’s Babylon, undoubtedly important works, but perhaps lacking the immediacy which made Pressure so forceful. Indeed, Burning an Illusion shares this quality, most likely because the factors of its production were identical. Financed by the BFI and shot on 16mm film stock, it is ungoverned by studio hands and has the uncanny ability to capture an atmosphere or milieu, seemingly without any effort. Certainly, Menelik Shabazz has created a sense of the ordinary, and this is his film’s very strength. It may be political filmmaking, and by extension feminist filmmaking, but it’s the human drama at its heart which allows it to makes its mark.

At the centre of this drama is Pat, played by Cassie McFarlane, an independent young black woman. We meet her just as she is beginning a romance with Dev (Victor Romero), one which is captured though the tiny personal moments. Indeed, Shabazz’s approach is very much one of social realism – his footage blends in seamlessly with the more overtly documentary-like shots of the Notting Hall carnival used later on, whilst he’s not afraid to have his characters appear awkward or even unattractive. Oftentimes there is a sense of eavesdropping on this couple (enhanced, of course, by the restrictive filming conditions) as their relationship develops and hits various hurdles. And it’s important for Burning an Illusion as a whole that we do get to see them close up, for it provides an initial warmth which only makes the ensuing harshness all the more palpable.

Furthermore, Dev is never treated as some kind of boogeyman figure. For all his threats of violence and anger, Dev is also allows a great charm and eloquence. It could be argued that he is more intelligent than Pat - indeed it is he who drives her increasing consciousness and therefore the narrative. Not that Burning an Illusion is especially plot driven, however. For the most part it’s a decidedly remote, domestic affair: much of the first hour remains solely with the couple, whilst it takes a surprising amount of time before we see the first significant white face.

And yet Shabazz is undoubtedly making a political film and, having established this firm base of realism, highlights this factor during the second half. Indeed, it is here where Burning an Illusion begins to reveal its age for whilst much of its discussion is still relevant, there is also plenty which is of its time. As such certain factors reveal themselves which, when removed from the then current considerations, can now appear rather contrived. Pat’s voice-over, for example, is deployed more fully as she grows increasingly conscious of her world, yet the sense is that Shabazz is using it more to get from one to the other as he couldn’t quite succeed in narrative terms. Certainly, McFarlane convinces throughout, but such transitions can appear awkward. Moreover, the increasing number of narrative “events” likewise feels more dictated by a need to discuss certain issues than they do by these characters’ lives. Thus the minor tensions of our couple spill over into grander concerns: racism, sexism, violence, police brutality, prison conditions, gun crime. Importantly, however, Shabazz approaches them in the correct manner. Of course, there’s an anger at work here, but he always leaves room for the audience to make up their own minds.