Q&A with filmmaker Leslie Harris on Wednesday, August 5

New 4K restoration created from a scan of the original 16mm A/B negatives, in collaboration between UCLA Film & Television Archive, the Academy Film Archive, and Sundance Institute, working closely with director Leslie Harris to restore her seminal debut film.

It was, as writer-director-producer 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.

Academy Museum film programming is generously funded by the Richard Roth Foundation.