A coming-of-age story centered around three Black women in Brooklyn, Alma’s Rainbow was made by writer and director Ayoka Chenzira in the early 1990s and sadly has been hidden from the world for most of the three decades since. This was partly Chenzira’s own decision, as she has fought hard to retain the rights to almost all of her work as an artist over the years, nurturing her creations and making sure not to let them be held by anyone who doesn’t have safe hands.

Those hands came in the form of Mark Toscano and his team at the Kino Lorber, who are putting it out into the world in its full, deserved glory.

Teenager Rainbow Gold (Victoria Gabrielle Platt) lives with her mother Alma (Kim Weston-Moran) in a home that houses the hair salon Alma runs for a living. When Alma’s lively sister Ruby (Mizan Kirby) returns from Paris after a decade away, the mother and aunt present differing views of the world that show Rainbow paths she could take as she’s figuring out who she’s going to become.

Of course, nothing is ever so simple. These opposing identities ultimately lead to Rainbow questioning her burgeoning self, navigating her identity with questions of beauty, self-image and the rights Black women have over their bodies. As Kino’s statement for the film aptly summarizes, “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.”

In celebration of the restoration’s release, we spoke with Ayoka Chenzira about the film’s history, constructing the characters and the world they inhabit and how details from her own life helped to shape Alma’s Rainbow.

It’s been quite a while since you made Alma’s Rainbow and with the help of the teams who worked on the restoration and now Milestone and Kino with distribution, it’s finally getting the release it’s always deserved. How are you feeling, knowing people will have the chance now to view the film?
Ayoka Chenzira: The reemergence of Alma’s Rainbow with the of Milestone and Kino does feel miraculous. I am still floating on a cloud after seeing the work projected at BAM [Brooklyn Academy of Music]. It’s a special moment when you feel that the audience is in tune with your work—and the restoration is gorgeous. Regarding the release, I am trying to maintain the perspective that everything is where it should be at the time that it should be, even if you think it should be otherwise. The loving for the film that is being shown now was not there in 1993—I don’t mean from the audience, but from the distributors.

Growing up, you lived in the same building where your mother was running a beauty salon, which is similar to Rainbow’s living situation with her mother. How does that world of the beauty/hair salon impact the life of a young Black woman growing into herself? What significance does that place hold?
I earned a BFA in film at NYU, a MA in education from Columbia University Teachers’ College, and a PhD in digital media from Georgia Tech. My most cherished education was obtained in my mother’s beauty parlor. The parlor was in the apartment building where we lived. It was located in a section where there was a dentist and a doctor, both African-American. She was the owner and sole technician.

It is a place where women came together to share stories. It was a safe space where I learned what women were thinking and experiencing. In the parlor, they removed their armor and settled into the special world that my mother created for them. It was also a frightening world because I heard stories of domestic violence, sexism, racism, and police brutality. Early on I was determined not to be what I would call a girly girl. My armor was the suit of what was then called a tomboy. It kept certain people, boys in particular, at bay.

I found the home you created in the film so wonderfully lived-in, so real and intricately detailed. Those little flamingo figurines? I’m obsessed, I want them in my home. What was your process in putting the home together to make it feel so alive?
Thank you for appreciating the home. Most distributors of the film found it implausible that an African-American woman could own such a beautiful home, which was odd to me. People had beautiful homes: everything from Victorian mansions to apartments, but always beautiful. Beauty is not necessarily connected to money. Sometimes people have money/can be rich and not have taste or a sense of beauty. The home that my mother made was beautiful and she made many things from scratch—she had an incredible sense of style, and her aesthetic choices were unlike any other in our neighborhood.

The costume designer, Sidney Kai Innis, found the house. She was friends with the internationally renowned model Peggy Dillard Toone. Peggy and her husband, artist Lloyd Toone, were restoring a 110-year-old Victorian house in Harlem. The house had all the wood and feeling that I ed as a child and fit the film’s story well. The flamingos are part of my history—the apartment building where I grew up was once called the Flamingo. Peggy and Lloyd are artists and understood what I was trying to accomplish. They pulled on their vintage collection of objects (Lloyd had an antique store) to help tell the story. The sculptures in the home are the work of Lloyd and they are made from the soles of shoes.

While Alma’s Rainbow is certainly a coming-of-age story about Rainbow, it’s also very much about Alma herself, both as a mother and as her own woman. What are some of the things Alma is working through at this time in her life—as a mother, as a sister, as a woman in the world?
The film is about dreams, freedom and survival. Alma and Ruby formed a singing act called The Flamingo Sisters. Alma put everything into it but it didn’t work out. She retreated to an emotional place where she could always be in control. In short, her story is a push and pull of fear and control. She can’t allow Rainbow to grow because she has stopped growing. She can’t connect with Ruby, in part because Ruby betrayed her, but also she represents a time in her life when Alma was more open and trusting and life threw her a curve. She is not nimble.

Dance and music have been a major part of your life, from going to the opera as a child and studying ballet to your earlier work like your short films on dancer and choreographer Syvilla Fort and Zajota and the Boogie Spirit. What role does dance and music play in Alma’s Rainbow? 
Dance is my favorite art form. I am empowered and humbled by how the body can communicate. I am the child of a woman who wanted to be an artist, but there was no space in her parents’ house for such. So, I received the artistic lessons. My mother purchased a baby grand piano for me, even though I could barely play scales at the time. She was not wealthy but had upper middle-class sensibilities. She knew a man who had an antique store in the neighborhood, and he offered a reasonable price. She saved money and purchased the piano. I don’t know how long it took her.

I played the cello in the school orchestra. I had ballet and modern lessons. I danced with a company. Years ago when I first toured Africa, there were places where I could not speak the language, but at parties we all danced and understood each other through movement. Zajota was created out of that experience. Syvilla was my dance teacher and I loved her and reveled in the Katherine Dunham dance technique that she taught. So yes, dance and music play big parts in my life.

Rainbow hangs with the boys in part because she doesn’t know how to be the girl that people expect her to be. When Alma unwraps the breast binder that Rainbow wears it’s a moment of deep awareness for her. Alma realizes that she needs to help her daughter become the girl/woman that she wants to be.

The idea of ambition was something that kept coming to my mind while watching the film: the ambitions we push to maintain, the ones we feel like we have to give up as we get older and see certain restrictions the world places on us, and how those ideas manifest (or are pushed against) in both Alma and Ruby. What is Rainbow learning about the world and the space it has (or doesn’t have) for her at this time in her life?
The overall view is that Rainbow must choose—that the situation is binary. Alma is one thing—Ruby is the opposite. I see Alma and Ruby as versions of each other. Both are dated, one is a more glamorous version of the other, but their ideas are dated. Alma doesn’t trust people/men and has no male friendships. Ruby’s relationship with men is transactional and she’s holding onto a fantasy of being a version of Josephine Baker so how she thinks about and uses her body is different than Alma’s but they are both thinking about their bodies, just in different ways. Rainbow represents new possibilities.

Alma’s Rainbow has a very organic rhythm, arrhythmic in a way but establishing its own flow in moving through its scenes. Could you tell me about some of your stylistic influences on the film?
The visual aesthetic in of photography is inspired by a period of filmmaking where the camera doesn’t move much—I think of this as dated, which works well for the story. It is also practical in that the house has lots of mirrors and the angles are often avoiding the mirrors. So the question becomes how to bring the frames to life. Performance, color palette, and deep focus played big parts in the visual design.

As noted, Alma’s Rainbow was one of the first films directed and produced by an African-American woman, and it feels like a film that will allow so many Black women, particularly young Black women who haven’t often seen themselves on screen, feel seen, and it’s so exciting to think about it being back out there in the world now. What are some of the films that make you feel most seen and how do they resonate with you?
Alma’s Rainbow was one of the first 35mm feature films written, directed and produced by an African-American woman. I don’t look to films to be seen for my values. There aren’t many spaces where we can experiment and put forward conversations or characters that go beyond the ordinary. A few films that I think are original in that they put forward characters and situations that were beyond ordinary are Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust, Neema Barnette’s Civil Brand, Kathleen Collins’ Losing Ground, and Cheryl Dunye’s The Watermelon Woman. There are more in the short film category.

Alma's Rainbow has long been and continues to rightly be championed by Black women across the industry—from Ruby Dee to Maya Cade—and you yourself have focused so much of your life on education and artistic guidance for Black women. Tell me a bit about how incredible that system is, what it means to be a Black woman artist and that role of uplifting one another in this world.
Generally, people should lift up people. It’s one of our roles as humans, one of our responsibilities. I am grateful for the public of friends and colleagues. Their has helped to push me along and to make my work known to a broader audience.

My additional system is not in the public eye. My husband Tim Richardson is my biggest fan and helps to make it possible for me to brave the world even on days when the world is not so welcoming. My daughter HaJ Chenzira-Pinnock has long been a creative partner. Her unique wit and sense of storytelling and analysis have often helped me to find the right tone for some of my creations. She recently served as the dramaturg for the Broadway show POTUS. I am the Chair of the Division of the Arts at Spelman College—a place that was built for the success of Black women and that too has served as a system for me.