For Colored Girls (2010)

Tessa Thompson: Nyla, Purple

Photos 

Quotes 

• [opening lines; all in voiceover] 

  Yasmine : [as she dances]  Dark phrases of womanhood, of never having been a girl. Half-note scattered without rhythm.

  Juanita : [as she waters her plants]  ... without rhythm. No tune distraught. Laughter falling over a black girl's shoulders. It's funny...

  Gilda : [as she cleans dust away with her broom]  ... funny. It's hysterical. The melodylessness of her dance. Don't tell nobody, don't tell a soul. She's dancing on beer cans and shingles.

  Jo : [as she readies herself for bed]  She's dancing on beer cans and shingles. This must be the spook house. Another song with no singers, lyrics no voices and uninterrupted solos, unseen performances. Are we ghouls? Children of horror?

  Alice : [as she prays in her closet]  Children of horror? The joke? Don't tell nobody, don't tell a soul. Are we animals? Have we gone crazy?

  Kelly : [as she looks at a pregnancy test]  ... gone crazy? I can't hear anything but maddening screams and the soft strains of death. And you promised me. You promised somebody. Anybody. Sing a black girl's song.

  Nyla : [as she walks to the stage for her diploma]  ... a black girl's song. Bring her out to know herself. To know you, but sing her rhythms caring...

  Tangie : [as she reads over unseen documents]  ... caring, struggle. Hard times, sing her song of life. She's been dead so long, closed in silence so long.

  Crystal : [as she has sex with Beau Willie]  ... so long.She doesn't know the sound of her own voice, her infinite beauty. She's half-note scattered without rhythm, no tune. Sing her sighs... Sing the song of her possibilities. Sing a righteous gospel. Let her be born.

  Yasmine , Juanita , Gilda , Jo , Alice , Kelly , Nyla , Tangie , Crystal : [simultaneously]  Let her be born and handled warmly. And this is for colored girls who have considered suicide but moved to the ends of their own rainbows.