Alma's Rainbow
15
A coming-of-age comedy-drama about three African American women living in Brooklyn, Alma’s Rainbow explores the life of teenager Rainbow Gold (Victoria Gabrielle Platt) as she enters womanhood and navigates standards of beauty, self-image, and the rights women have over their bodies.
Rainbow attends a strict parochial school, studies dance, and lives with her strait-laced 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.
When Alma’s free-spirited sister Ruby (Mizan Kirby) returns from Paris after a ten-year absence, the sisters clash over what constitutes the “proper” direction for Rainbow’s life. Alma’s Rainbow highlights a multi-layered Black women’s world where the characters live, love, and wrestle with what it means to exert and exercise their agency.
An essential film in the ‘90s Black cinema canon, Alma’s Rainbow was written, directed, and produced by award-winning, internationally acclaimed film and video artist Ayoka Chenzira.
Details
“Appropriately colourful costumes, a curvy jazz score and plenty of hard-won womanly wisdom to impart.”
The Guardian
“A lovely, tactile film with such a nuanced depiction of the ever-shifting tides of mother/daughter dynamics, overflowing with love and care as much as it is with a vibrant colour palette and gorgeous textures.”
Little White Lies
“Nearly 30 years later, “Alma’s Rainbow” makes the statement, perhaps even louder than ever, that film can and should reflect the lives and realities of Black women.”
The Wrap
