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It was, as writer-director Leslie Harris said, the “film Hollywood dared not do”: an unabashedly frank, challenging, and humorous story of a young Black woman growing into herself. Just Another Girl on the I.R.T. features Ariyan A. Johnson’s astonishing screen debut as Chantel, a Brooklyn teenager so filled with life and opinions she often breaks the fourth wall to directly address her audience. Chantel’s parents struggle financially and fight, as she, a star student, dreams of the day when she can leave for college. So, when she gets pregnant, she hides the fact until the baby’s birth. Harris’s film, which turns 30 this year, is still radical in its depiction of sexuality and its refusal of the common Hollywood narratives of victimhood or tragedy in favor of a complex character who doesn’t just persevere but thrives. In celebration of this landmark anniversary, the Academy Film Archive is pleased to premiere a restoration of Just Another Girl on the I.R.T. and Harris’s Never Forget , a documentary short on the role of the church in African American history.
DIRECTOR: Leslie Harris.
Just Another Girl on the I.R.T.
WRITTEN BY: Leslie Harris.
CAST: Ariyan A. Johnson, Kevin Thigpen, Ebony Jerido.
1992. 92 min. USA. Color. DCP.
Digitally restored from the origi- nal 16mm A/B negatives, and a new DCP created in collaboration between Sundance Institute, the Academy Film Archive, and UCLA Film & Televi- sion Archive. Thanks to Miramax and Paramount for permission to screen the film.
Never Forget
DIRECTOR: Leslie Harris.
1998. 4 min. USA. Color. DCP.
SPEC I AL SCREEN I NG
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