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The African Desperate + Q&A
Institute of Contemporary Arts
A young Black woman wears a headband and floral top, with neon orange hair. She stares straight into the camera, mouth slightly open, a look of stillness, but with direction
The African Desperate, dir. Martine Syms, USA 2022, 99 min., English

The African Desperate tracks one very long day for Palace Bryant (an expertly deadpan Diamond Stingily), a newly minted MFA grad whose final 24 hours in art school become a real trip.

Palace is not going to the graduation party – she hates the woods. If this were a reality show, she would be the person who was not here to make friends. Palace needs to get home, back to Chicago from upstate New York, but that means surviving a hazy, hilarious, and hallucinatory night-long odyssey, stumbling from academic critiques to backseat hookups.

The electrifying feature debut from renowned artist Martine Syms, The African Desperate brings her razor-sharp satire and vivid aesthetic invention to a riotous coming-of-age comedy.
 
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