Illusions

Streaming video - 1983

It's 1942, one year after Pearl Harbor; the place is National Studios, a fictitious Hollywood motion picture studio. Mignon Duprée, a Black woman studio executive who appears to be white and Ester Jeeter, an African American woman who is the singing voice for a white Hollywood star are forced to come to grips with a society that perpetuates false images as status quo.. This highly-acclaimed drama by one of the leading African American women directors follows Mignon's dilemma, Ester's struggle and the use of cinema in wartime Hollywood: three illusions in conflict with reality.. "Mckee’s strong performance and growing awareness throughout the film makes it both dramatically satisfying and also richly nuanced with issue...s of cultural appropriation and cooptation of black music and culture for commercial gain… The film’s relevance to some of today’s mainstream film and music industries and the dismissal and appropriation of black stories is also telling." - IndieWire. "Cleverly uses film itself as a metaphor for the myths fostered by whites and men about Blacks and women." - Marcia Pally, Village Voice more