SHORT FILM

5 Afternoons

Once a week, two black women are forced to overcome class and generational prejudices for a chance of friendship and self healing.

What happens when an aging militant and a lonely business major meet once a week for tea? Tia Washington is a hard-working college student getting ready to graduate at the top of her class. On the outside she seems to have everything under control, but when she is forced to assist Juanita Norris, a crass, older woman from a rough neighborhood she is confronted with her biggest challenge yet. As their weekly meetings progress, the two women must learn to overcome their class and generational prejudices for a chance at friendship and self-healing.

5 Afternoons (originally titled, Chamomile Tea) was inspired by a quote by postcolonial studies scholar Kirsten Holst Peterson in her article “First Things First: Problems of a Feminist Approach to African Literature”. :

“universal sisterhood is not a given biological condition as much as perhaps a goal to work toward”.

As a new transplant to Philadelphia in 2007, I fell in love with the diversity of Black communities that existed in the city. I found the intersection of those communities in a shared idea of Black pride and liberation but class, religious and ideological barriers inhibited the power of that solidarity in many spaces. I also wanted to talk about the damaging effects of internalized racism and use the empowering structure of a mother/daughter relationship to hold and move a story of hope.

Also an Official Selection at Urban Suburban Film Festival and the San Francisco Black Film Festival