Fay Craig - Mirage

1963
Sound
2m

You'd better believe it! Talented Jamaican-born dancer Fay Craig dances up a kitschy storm in this kooky 1960s dance film.

Fabulous Jamaican-born dancer Fay Craig throws some serious shapes on an ultra-kitsch 1960s stage set in this bizarre dance film, produced for the short-lived Cinebox film-jukebox. The Cinebox films all flaunt their over-the-top aesthetic, but also reveal problematic attitudes towards gender, race and culture - as the exoticisation of Craig in this film highlights. Two other Cinebox numbers, Voodoo and Bongo Baby, are also available on BFI Player.

Fay Craig is known to have starred in at least three short films shot for the Cinebox system. A few years earlier in 1959, she'd made an uncredited appearance in Basil Dearden's crime drama Sapphire, also available on BFI Player. Around the time Bongo Baby was produced, she had a role as a nightclub stripper in Charles Saunders' B picture Jungle Street (1961).

Black Britain on Film

Striking, illuminating and sometimes surprising images of black culture, community and characters, spanning over a century of British film and TV.

From some of the earliest appearances at the dawn of the 20th century to groundbreaking postwar documentaries and contemporary features, this collection charts changing attitudes and hidden histories. Here are the trailblazers, the icons, the stereotypes, the controversies. These richly varied films uncover sometimes surprising histories of black culture and community. They tackle troubling issues of race, representation and identity. And they highlight some of the best of black British filmmaking, from the work of pioneers Horace Ové and Menelik Shabazz to later innovators John Akomfrah and Ngozi Onwurah