Black Burns Fast

Black Burns Fast is a 2025 coming-of-age film written and directed by Sandulela Asanda. It premiered at Durban International Film Festival in 2025 before being shown at Berlinale in 2026.^[1][2] Starring Esihle Ndleleni, Muadi Ilung, Mila Smith, Khensani Khoza, Ntsimedi Gwangwa and Basetsana Motloung, it follows seventeen-year-old Luthando and her Black friends in a majority-white boarding school in South Africa. It is produced by South African company Urucu Media.

Premise

Seventeen-year-old Luthando returns for another year at a prestigious South African all-girls’ boarding school. As a Black scholarship student in a majority-white, conservative school, Luthando, focuses on attaining good grades. When Ayanda, a new student, arrives at the school, the two begin a secret romance that eventually threatens Luthando's scholarship and her relationship with her mother.

Production

In a director's statement for Berlinale, filmmaker Sandulela Asanda said about her motivation for the film: "[t]he pressure and heat of these expectations that I felt as a queer Black teenager inspired me to write this film [...]. I wrote this film for a younger me and other Black girls to show the jubilation of girlhood and that there is joy to be had outside of the things that confine us."^[2] Moreover, the director hopes that the film's "comedic approach" makes audiences more comfortable to discuss issues such as racism, classism, sexism and homophobia present in South African society and schools.^[2]

Release and reception

References