About Alma's Rainbow
Alma's Rainbow | Directed by Ayoka Chenzira: 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. [85 mins; comedy, drama; English]
“A gorgeous clarion call for our young Black girls, heralding the community, creativity and confidence that is the pride of our culture.” – Ava DuVernay
“Chenzira's much celebrated and award-winning early work is essential viewing today as much as it was when first released in 1994.” – Julie Dash
“An important filmmaker whose works inspire and celebrate the richness of Black culture." – Ruby Dee
Home Is Where the Heart Is: Black Cinema's Exploration of Home is generously supported by the Women’s Philanthropy Leadership Council, the Black Philanthropy Circle, the Department of African American & African Diaspora Studies, Bloomington High School Black Culture Club, IDS' Black Voices, and the IU Black Student Union.