A Powerful Thang

A Powerful Thang is one of American cinema’s most intimate and romantic portrayals of the sacredness of Black love and sexuality. The film follows the courtship between Yasmine, an African-identified single mother and writer, and Craig, a saxophone teacher, as they navigate their desires and needs.

A graduate of UCLA in the wake of the famed LA Rebellion film movement, Davis directed A Powerful Thang while teaching at Antioch College in Yellow Springs in the early 1990s. The drama acts as a beautiful time capsule of Black life in southwest Ohio at the time. Prior to A Powerful Thang, we’ll show Davis’s landmark short film Cycles, which uses animation and live action to discover a cinematic language unique to African American women.

Davis is a 2022–23 Artist Residency Award recipient, and the Wex will be supporting her upcoming film Stars of the Northern Sky, a hybrid documentary chronicling the legal trials of Sojourner Truth, Phillis Wheatley, and Marie-Joseph Angélique. Davis's career is full of riches, and we're excited to host her first visit back to Ohio in many years. She'll introduce the evening’s event and participate in a conversation and Q&A session after the screening. (total program time: 74 mins., DCP)