Nana Mensah is another in a series of not too well-known actresses who decided to try their luck in scriptwriting and directing. In this humorous drama, in which she played the main role, she presented herself at the festival in Tribeca, where she received the award for the best new director, and “Queen of Glory” is a film in which she certainly included some autobiographical elements. Because just like her in real life, her Sarah Obeng is a young American of Ghanaian origin, and as one of the main backdrops in the film she was served by an actual Christian memorabilia and book store in the Bronx owned by her parents.
Although she was born in America, Sarah is one of those typical second-generation immigrants who can’t shake off her African heritage even if she wants to. Despite the fact that she is a modern young woman, a molecular neuro-oncologist (whatever that is) and a research fellow at Columbia University, her family members are real Africans. When her mother suddenly dies, she will have to return to the Bronx for a short time, where her father, who left them a long time ago and returned to Ghana, will appear in her parents’ house. Sarah inherited a store from her mother in the Bronx, which she plans to sell, but she will find an ex-convict working there, tattooed all over his body, who looks as if he committed a mass murder moments earlier.
She is expected to organize a traditional African funeral, a vigil, and her private life is in quite a state of chaos since she has been in a secret relationship with a married colleague for three years who is clearly attracted to her, but she still plans to follow him to the university in Ohio. And “Queen of Glory” was one of those bitter-sweet, unobtrusive and unpretentious films that in an economical eighty minutes delivers a likeable and solid story that avoids falling into clichés when it comes to similar situations. Even this occasional strengthening of stereotypes about Africans in America does not seem forced and pathetic, but sympathetic and empathetic and so natural.