A Love Song for Latasha
A Love Song for Latasha is a 2019 American biographical documentary short film directed by Sophia Nahli Allison. The film reimagines the life of Latasha Harlins, a Black Los Angeles girl shot and killed by a convenience store owner in 1991. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject at the 93rd Academy Awards.
Allison spent two years making A Love Song for Latasha, serving as director, cinematographer, editor, and producer. Allison wanted to create a piece restoring the memory of Harlins' life and death to their significance in those events, often described only as of the Rodney King riots. But the organization's indifference and incomprehension of the subject's significance prompted Allison to realize that she could no longer work within institutions that do not validate the importance of her existence. Instead, she worked closely with Harlins' friends, depicting their childhoods and South Central Los Angeles. Alice Walker and Saidiya Hartman were influenced by Allison's approach to creating a missing archive in the absence of home videos or other archival footage of Harlins.
A Love Song for Latasha reimagines the life of Latasha Harlins, a Black girl shot by a convenience store owner in Los Angeles in 1991, fueling the 1992 uprising. At the time, It broadcasted security camera footage of Harlins' death widely on television news, but Allison's work does not include it. Instead, Jude Dry wrote in IndieWire, the 19-minute film is "bursting with sun-kissed sidewalks and faded basketball courts, clean line animation and radiant Black girls posed gracefully, like young queens." The day of the shooting is depicted in animation, intercut with VHS tape static, to heighten the sense of memory despite the lack of any home movies of Harlins.
The film reimagines the narrative of Harlins through intimate memories shared by her cousin Shinese Harlins and best friend, Tybie O'Bard. A Love Song for Latasha focuses on how she experienced society and what dreams and hopes she developed rather than focusing on her death.
Detail information:
Link film: https://www.netflix.com/title/81304985
Initial release: April 28, 2019
Running time: 19 minutes
