The Garden Theatre and YWCA Princeton are hosting another free screening to commemorate Black History Month on Sunday, February 16 at 11 a.m.

A new restoration of Alma’s Rainbow will be screened at the Garden, 160 Nassau Street. Dominique Jean-Louis, the Chief Historian of the Center for Brooklyn History at the Brooklyn Public Library, will lead a post-film discussion.

Alma’s Rainbow is one of the first feature films to be written, produced, and directed by an African American woman – Ayoka Chenzira. It is a coming-of-age picture about Rainbow Gold, a Brooklyn teenager who searches for meaning as she confronts her newfound feelings for boys, unrealistic beauty standards, and the fundamental question of women’s autonomy over their own bodies. The film is a significant contribution to ’90s independent Black cinema and remains relevant in contemporary discussions.

The restoration of Alma’s Rainbow was a collaboration between the Academy Film Archive, The Film Foundation, and Milestone Films. The Garden’s screening was underwritten by YWCA Princeton.

Jean-Louis often writes and lectures of Black history in America, schools and education, and New York

City history. Previous to her position at the Brooklyn Public Library, she was Associate Curator of History Exhibitions at New York Historical Society. She is a former Mellon Predoctoral Fellow in Museum Education at the Museum of the City of New York, where she also contributed to the exhibition New York at Its Core (2016). Her newest exhibit for the Center for Brooklyn History, Trace/s: Family History Research and the Legacy of Slavery in Brooklyn, is on view through August 30.