JUST ANOTHER GIRL ON THE I.R.T. Cinema's Legacy

Following the film, film scholar and Cinema’s Legacy guest curator Racquel Gates leads a conversation with Michael B. Gillespie, Hannah Giorgis and Terri Francis.

Chantal is confident, thoughtful and driven. Her working class Brooklyn family lives paycheck-to-paycheck, so she puts in hours at an upper-class grocery store to help out. For 17-year-old Chantal, who does what she wants when she wants, her near future ambitions towards med school and financial stability are well-attainable. But her sense of freedom is taken from her when she receives unwelcome news. This criminally underseen coming-of-age masterpiece from Leslie Harris, which remains the director’s only feature film, is unmatched in its depiction of the interior life of a young, Black woman living in New York City in the ‘90s. Ariyan A. Johnson exudes an authentic charm as Chantal, a groundbreaking character, allowed to be at once joyful, articulate, determined and Black.