New Orleans Film Society

'Bama Girl

Jessica Thomas knows what she wants. She is an over-achieving, highly driven student at the University of Alabama with an outstanding GPA, recipient of the University’s most elite honors and the former president of one of the largest sororities on campus. She is popular, ambitious and beautiful. And since she was a freshman here at the University she has wanted one particular feather in her cap – to be Homecoming Queen. There is only one problem: she is black. And in the South, that changes everything. ‘Bama Girl follows Jessica’s campaign for Queen, running against not simply 15 other co-eds, but a strictly segregated Greek system, internal black politics, and, most ominously, a secret association of all-white fraternities and sororities called ‘The Machine’ that has been controlling politics at the University for most of the past century, including the Student Government and Homecoming Queen elections. Her attitude is “so what!” and ‘Bama Girl captures Jessica making that point, assembling a small army of supporters, battling against a rival black candidate that threatens to split the black vote, campaigning her heart out and challenging the Machine head-on.