Nearly 30 years after it premiered at the 1993 Sundance Film Festival and won the Special Jury Prize for Outstanding Achievement in a First Feature, the newly restored Just Another Girl on the I.R.T. debuted Monday on the Festival’s digital platform.
In a recent interview with KCRW, Festival director Tabitha Jackson said of the film’s director, “Leslie Harris is one of the lost voices. She had this film; it broke out. It won awards at Sundance; it got picked up by Miramax, and she has never been able to make another film. And I think that is because she was a woman and I think it’s because she was a woman of color. And I think it’s because the work that she wanted to make challenged the orthodoxies.”
The Festival’s annual From the Collection screening is the perfect way to bring back “lost voices.” Through our longtime partnership with the UCLA Film & Television Archive and key collaboration with the Academy Archive, we worked closely with Harris to restore her seminal debut film. With only a single 35mm show print available for screenings, it was imperative to create a new digitally remastered version of the film, helping to expand access and bring renewed attention to Just Another Girl on the I.R.T.
Once all the film elements were in place, which required tracking down sound elements across different lab and storage inventories, restoration work commenced. Roundabout Entertainment remastered the film’s visuals, including a 4K scan of the original 16mm A/B negatives, and Audio Mechanics remastered the sound. The project could not have been done without them, the work of the Academy Archive, UCLA Film & Television Archive, Leslie Harris, Miramax, Paramount, and many others who championed the film.
We’re so proud to bring the Just Another Girl on the I.R.T. digital restoration to fruition and thrilled to be sharing it with new and old audiences alike. Viewers still have an opportunity to see this impactful, memorable film beginning today.
