THE STORY – Seventeen-year-old Luthando, adorkable, bookish and forever drifting between reality and her vivid inner world, returns for another year at a prestigious South African all-girls’ boarding school. The place is governed by a conservative culture where reputation is everything, and nonconformity is quietly disciplined. As the lone scholarship girl, Luthando has learned to keep her head down, her marks up, and her single mother’s high expectations close to her heart. Her world is turned upside down by the arrival of a bold and effortlessly charismatic new pupil, Ayanda. The two begin a secret romance and Luthando is ushered into Ayanda’s orbit of confident, carefree friends, tasting a freedom she has never experienced at the school before.
THE CAST – Esihle Ndleleni, Muadi Ilung, Mila Smith, Khensani Khoza, Ntsimedi Gwangwa & Basetsana Motloung
THE TEAM – Sandulela Asanda (Director/Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 100 Minutes
Sandulela Asanda’s feature debut, “Black Burns Fast,” announces itself with a refreshing sense of confidence. A queer coming-of-age romance set at a prestigious South African all-girls boarding school, the film blends playful stylization with earnest emotional inquiry, capturing the turbulence of adolescence through a distinctly local lens. While its ambition occasionally outpaces its execution, the film remains an engaging, heartfelt introduction to a director with a clear voice and a strong instinct for character.
The story centers on Luthando (Esihle Ndleleni), a seventeen-year-old scholarship student who has learned how to survive by making herself small. Bookish, awkward, and prone to drifting into her own inner world, she moves through the rigid rhythms of school life with quiet discipline. Her academic success is not just personal pride, but a form of obligation, a way to justify her place within an institution that prizes conformity and reputation above all else. As the lone scholarship girl, she carries the expectations of her single mother as well as the unspoken pressure to never misstep.
That carefully maintained balance is upended by the arrival of Ayanda (Muadi Ilung), a magnetic new student whose confidence feels almost destabilizing. Open about sex, unapologetic in her desires, and effortlessly cool, Ayanda represents everything Luthando has learned not to be. Their connection sparks quickly, drawing Luthando into a secret romance and into Ayanda’s orbit of carefree, self-assured friends. For the first time, Luthando experiences a version of herself unshackled from constant self-monitoring, tasting freedom within a space designed to suppress it.
Asanda stages this emotional awakening with a deliberately quirky, heightened sensibility. The film leans into playful visual devices, quick camera dollies, graphic flourishes, and dreamlike cutaways that mirror Luthando’s racing thoughts and emotional swings. These stylistic choices give the film a buoyant energy, aligning it with lighthearted young adult romances, while still allowing space for introspection. The tone is often comedic, sometimes bordering on caricature, but there is intention behind the exaggeration. The school’s exaggerated religiosity, its out-of-touch authority figures, and its rigid moral codes are rendered as absurd precisely because they are suffocating.
One of the film’s most notable achievements is how it situates queerness within a specifically South African context. “Black Burns Fast” does not frame Luthando’s sexuality as an abstract identity struggle, but as something shaped by class, religion, family expectation, and institutional power. The language around queerness within the school, dismissive phrases like “experimenting,” reveals how easily desire is minimized when it challenges established norms. Asanda approaches this with wit rather than didacticism, allowing humor to expose the contradictions of a system that claims moral authority while refusing emotional honesty.
The film’s warmth is its greatest strength. Asanda treats Luthando’s mistakes not as moral failures, but as part of the messy, necessary process of becoming. Jealousy, insecurity, and self-sabotage are allowed to coexist with joy and curiosity. Luthando does not simply come of age. She unravels, contradicts herself, and learns through consequence. There is a generosity in this portrayal that resists the tidy arcs often imposed on coming-of-age stories, particularly those centered on queer characters.
At the same time, “Black Burns Fast” struggles to maintain emotional balance. The heightened tone, while often charming, sometimes undercuts the intimacy of Luthando and Ayanda’s relationship. Their romance develops rapidly, and while the spark between them is clear, the film rarely pauses long enough to let that bond deepen. Ayanda, in particular, remains more catalyst than character. Her rebelliousness and charisma are compelling, but her inner life feels underexplored, limiting the emotional complexity of their dynamic.
The supporting cast functions primarily as mirrors for Luthando’s self-discovery. Friends and classmates are drawn broadly, often with comic exaggeration, serving thematic rather than narrative purposes. This works within the film’s playful register, but it also flattens moments that could have carried greater emotional weight. When conflict escalates, particularly around jealousy and betrayal, the film moves quickly through consequences, prioritizing momentum over reflection.
Yet even when “Black Burns Fast” falters, Asanda’s vision remains assured. There is a clear understanding that adolescence is not defined by innocence, but by volatility. Luthando’s journey is not about becoming morally upright, but about becoming honest. The film suggests that self-acceptance is rarely neat, often disruptive, and sometimes painful, especially within environments that reward silence and obedience. Visually and tonally, the film captures a vibrant sense of South African youth culture, grounding its stylization in a lived-in environment. The boarding school is both hyper-specific and emblematic, a microcosm where power, desire, and identity collide. Asanda’s affection for these characters and this world is palpable, lending the film an emotional generosity that carries it through its weaker moments.
As a debut feature, “Black Burns Fast” is impressive in its ambition and clarity of purpose. It does not reinvent the coming-of-age genre, but it refreshes it through perspective, joy, and specificity. If the film sometimes burns too brightly for its own good, it also leaves behind a lingering warmth. Most importantly, it signals the arrival of a filmmaker with something to say and the confidence to say it playfully, imperfectly, and with heart.
