Burning an Illusion, Glasgow Film Theatre
22 – 25 August, 2022
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.
Menelik Shabazz’s pioneering first feature, shot around the communities of Notting Hill and Ladbroke Grove, marked a coming-of-age for Black British cinema. 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.
(1981)
GFT, 12 Rose Street, Glasgow G3 6RB

This section: Cinema, What's On Glasgow West End: cinema, clubs, theatre, music, events, festivals, community and more
Related Pages
- Refugee Festival Woodlands Community
- CinemARC – Refugee Week
- Dreamers Screening at The Pyramid
- Take 2 Access: Beauty and the Beast at GFT
- Barbie: The Exhibition at Kelvingrove Art Gallery
- Close Encounters of the Third Kind
- Dear Green Music Scene at ARC, University of Glagow
- 10 Rillington Place at GFT
- Planet Israel at GFT
- Archive Gems – Wee Dementia Film Fest
- Cheers for Twenty Years, Glasgow Science Festival
- No Place For Football – The Untold Story of Greenland B67’s Artic Champions Dream – review
- The Scotland Channel presents Ceilidh in the Kirk
- Intolerable Cruelty at GFT
- WestFest: GLASGOW MADRIGIRLS – THE WELLSPRING
- Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Tea Green Summer Market
- Treasures of the Vikings, Govan Book Festival
- Heritage Talks: Living With Rain in Glasgow – Dr Andrew Hoolachan
- Westfest 2026 – Step into the Arlington Baths
- Glasgow Group’s Exhibition at The New Glasgow Society