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.

• "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

• “Heartfelt, visually stunning, and poignant for Black girls and women.” – Aramide A. Tinubu, Shadow and Act
• “Timely and urgent. A complex portrait of Black womanhood that was all too uncommon for the era.” – Ronda Racha Penrice, The Wrap

About the restoration: 

Julie Dash presents a new 4K restoration of Ayoka Chenzira’s Alma’s Rainbow. Restoration by the Academy Film Archive, The Film Foundation, and Milestone Films. Restoration supervised by Mark Toscano. Funding provided by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation. Lab: Roundabout Entertainment and Audio Mechanics. With thanks to Vincent Pirozzi.

About Ayoka Chenzira: 

Ayoka "Ayo" Chenzira is an independent African-American producer, film director, television director, animator, writer, experimental filmmaker, and transmedia storyteller. She is the first African American woman animator and one of a handful of Black experimental filmmakers working since the late 1970s.

Ayoka Chenzira was one of the first African Americans to teach film production in higher education and among the first African American woman animators. A protege of director Kathleen Collins, whose 1982 film Losing Ground was shot by Alma’s Rainbow cinematographer Ronald Gray, Chenzira continues to teach and works prolifically as a director of television, including episodes of Ava DuVernay’s Queen Sugar and Greenleaf, and is currently in production on the adaptation of Octavia Butler’s Kindred.

About SNAPSHOT: 

SNAPSHOT is a 12 month long season launching in April 2024 which explores the

‘snapshots’ of Black Girlhood found in cinema. The season includes re-releases, archive work and new releases.

By mixing contemporary with the classics, as T A P E has done many times before, the season

will be a deep dive into films by Black women across the decades. SNAPSHOT aims

to engage a new audience for the films of Black female directors through activities, a live

community built exhibition, and social media material and assets. The tour includes films that

offer a snapshot of a time and place, challenging our misconceptions of the cinema canon through powerful depictions of Black, female led stories.

SNAPSHOT is made possible with the support of the BFI, awarding funds from the National Lottery in order to bring this project to more audiences across the UK.

About T A P E Collective: 

T A P E was founded in 2015 by Angela Moneke and Isra Al Kassi after meeting through the Barbican Young Programmers scheme. T A P E launched as a response to the lack of representation on screen; wanting to platform and highlight the sheer variety of under-served films out there. 

Over the years T A P E has curated a number of well-rounded screenings bringing together film, art, music, talks and more into one space and events with a focus on representation, identity and heritage; bringing exciting screenings to new audiences, championing the forgotten could-be cult films of the festival circuit with a focus on programmes of women of colour both behind and in front of the camera.