Alma’s Rainbow
Black Debutantes
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1h 29m
Directed by Ayoka Chenzira • 1994 • United States
Starring Kim Weston-Moran, Victoria Gabrielle Platt, Mizan Nunes
A rediscovered treasure of independent cinema, this incisive comedic drama follows Rainbow Gold (Victoria Gabrielle Platt), a teenager coming of age in Brooklyn, as she looks to two vastly different models of womanhood: her straitlaced mother, Alma (Kim Weston-Moran), who runs a hair salon in the parlor of their home and disapproves of her daughter’s newfound interest in boys; and her free-spirited, larger-than-life aunt Ruby (Mizan Kirby), who has just returned from Paris after a ten-year absence and whose presence shakes up the household. Bursting with the bold Day-Glo colors of nineties fashion, this dazzling feature from feminist filmmaker and animator Ayoka Chenzira grapples with questions of Black women’s sexuality, agency, and self-image from a multigenerational perspective.
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