Bass greets us before the evening’s performers do. With most of the house lights still off, an introductory hip-hop track rumbles through our bones with its low-end, offering a mysterious...
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Vee Hua 華婷婷It’s the Spring Equinox, and I am at the Showbox in downtown Seattle, surrounded by the excitable chatter of a relatively young, mostly BIPOC audience that is dressed adorably and ready to impress. We are waiting for R&B musician David...
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Photo courtesy of PO Box Collective in Chicago Located in major cities, rural areas, and all types of geographies in-between, DIY (Do-It-Yourself) organizers, collectives, and cultural spaces can encompass everything from music venues in dilapidated...
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![Nana Mensah Interview: Queen of Glory Expertly Blends Humor and Pathos in a Ghanaian-American Family Story
READ THE INTERVIEW
by @alison.j.smith:
https://bit.ly/redefinenana
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As writer-director-actor Nana Mensah @itsnanamensah of Queen of Glory explains, she wanted to reimagine ubiquitous narratives of flailing young adults. “A lot of times with that quarter-life crisis genre, people are just making enough money to buy the weed and pay the rent, and that wasn’t really my experience,” Mensah explains. “[With] my experience, especially being the child of West African immigrants, there was never going to be an opportunity to kind of coast à la Slackers. So I thought it’d be so interesting to have a character who is experiencing this quarter-life crisis and also is holding it down at work. I don’t think we get to see women be on top of their game in their profession and then perhaps falling apart in their personal life.”
“I interviewed some directors and spoke about the project in the very beginning, and they all had takes that were super interesting, but they just weren’t the film that I was looking to make,” Mensah explains. “I wasn’t doubling down on the strife narrative of what it is to be Black and a woman and from the Bronx. I wanted it to be a little more nuanced – a little bit more dynamic.”
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Out now on @filmmovement - screening at @thegrandcinema in Tacoma starting August 16, with other national dates throughout the summer.
#NanaMensah @queenofgloryfilm #NewYorkArtist #NewYorkArtists #NewYorkFilmmaker #NewYorkFilmmakers #NYCArtist #NYCArtists #NYCFilmmaker #NYCFilmmakers #BlackArtist #BlackArtists #BlackFilmmaker #BlackFilmmakers #QueenOfGlory #GhanianAmerican #Ghana #GhanianFilm #Ghanian #GhanianFilms #Humor #Dramedy](https://scontent-atl3-2.cdninstagram.com/v/t51.2885-15/297690839_181512530947907_2538323346777474592_n.jpg?_nc_cat=109&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=8ae9d6&_nc_ohc=1bdpqS_hp2MAX8sDo3x&_nc_ht=scontent-atl3-2.cdninstagram.com&edm=AL-3X8kEAAAA&oh=00_AT9VQ-5dY6edX-gbPLauiLzFNlU8er3ZP4wNOnG5FNbOJg&oe=62FE656B)
