When Sarah, a no-nonsense molecular biologist at Columbia University, receives a call informing her of her mother’s death, her default response is denial. “There must be some sort of...
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Vee Hua 華婷婷Proudly known as “The First Home to Asian American Cinema, the New York-based Asian American International Film Festival (AAIFF) entered its 44th year in 2021. Running from August 11 to 22, the festival was presented with a hybrid in-person...
From Lee Isaac Chung’s Minari to Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland, Asian American filmmakers have gained widespread recognition over the past year for their ability to tell stories that are universal. Running from March 4-14, 2021, the 9th Annual...
With the COVID-19 pandemic has come many emotions, not least of which is grief. Grief in the sense of loneliness, loss, and confusion; grief in the sense of isolation. In her stop-motion music video for “Anhedonia,” Brooklyn-based artist Cressa Beer...
“By courageously looking, we defiantly declared: ‘Not only will I stare. I want my look to change reality.'” – bell hooks Launched in February 2021, Our Right to Gaze: Black Film Identities is a short film distribution and...
Hailing itself as Slamdance Film Festival’s “largest and most accessible festival yet,” Slamdance 2021 runs virtually from February 12th through 15th, and can be accessed with an impressively cheap $10 festival pass. With its long...
Alison SmithIn her 2021 documentary, Film About a Father Who, filmmaker Lynne Sachs recalls how her dad, Ira Sachs, owned two identical red Cadillacs that he swapped out for each other, never letting his family in on his con. While benign, this secret was the...
In Through the Night, a lovely new documentary by first-time director Loira Limbal, daycare owner Nunu coaxes an anxious young boy to put aside his electronic tablet and be more present with the other kids. With a rueful laugh, she asks...
![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)
