Horace Ové’s ‘Pressure’ & Menelik Shabazz’s ‘Burning An Illusion’ Among Titles Screening As Part Of TIFF Cinematheque’s Windrush Season — SkimNews
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- TIFF Cinematheque is presenting “Pressure: Growing Up After the Windrush” through Oct. 28, a Vicky Wong-curated season marking the 50th anniversary of Horace Ové’s landmark feature.
- Pressure, described in Vicky Wong’s series essay as the first Black British feature, is screening in a new 4K version restored by the BFI National Archive and The Film Foundation; after an Oct. 16 presentation, it will screen again in Toronto on Oct. 24.
- Herbert Norville portrays Tony, whose search for work meets rejection and escalating police harassment as he struggles between his Trinidadian parents’ assimilation goals and his activist brother’s contempt for his racist new home, culminating in a political awakening.
- Vicky Wong characterizes the season as a brief, non-definitive survey of coming-of-age stories confronting oppression, intergenerational and cultural conflict, and Black British identities’ claim to space in British culture.
- Burning an Illusion, Menelik Shabazz’s 1981 film, is among the season’s featured titles alongside Ten Bob in Winter (1963), Step Forward Youth (1977), Babylon (TIFF ’81), The Passion of Remembrance (1986), Twilight City (TIFF ’89) and Lovers Rock (2020).
- Frances-Anne Solomon, founder of CaribbeanTales and the Windrush International Caribbean Film Festival, presented Pressure on Oct. 16.
Why it matters: TIFF Cinematheque audiences gain access to at least eight films spanning 1963–2020 through Oct. 28, with Pressure in a new 4K restoration. The anniversary spotlight does more than revisit Ové’s landmark: it places that film alongside explicit stories of Afro-Caribbean identity, oppression and conflict, materially expanding the season’s historical range.
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