Another Star is set in 1970s Washington, D.C., where young Black girls begin vanishing from neighborhood streets, their disappearances met with silence, suspicion, and systemic neglect. When one girl fails to return home from a simple trip to the corner store, her family’s growing panic exposes a community long accustomed to being unheard.
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Review by Julie C. Sheppard:
Another Star is a vivid and suspenseful retelling of the heartbreaking true story of targeted murders of young black girls in Washington, D.C. in the early 1970s. This film captures the style of the era on so many levels: the use of a rotary dial telephone and an analog clock, bright wallpaper motifs on the set walls, wardrobe pieces with patterns such as stripes and geometric shapes, large afro hairstyles, 1970’s musical refrains emanating from the radio, and scenes of protesters picketing against the Vietnam war. Another reminder of the time is that there is no sign of any modern electronic games for the kids, but instead a simple game of Jacks for entertainment.
The film layers in archival photos of the real girls who lost their lives, which makes this dramatization even more poignant. Other effective choices are made such as muted voices during arguments and low, extreme close-ups of hurried walking feet of both the pursued and the pursuer. It also does a clever job using flashback scenes to clarify the chain of events before the murders.
A solid cast does justice to this tragic depiction of events. The committed female detective is particularly convincing and is able to sensitively draw out the grieving mother with a mind to keep other children from potential danger. These murders must have caused such terror and paranoia for this black community of the time. The project does a remarkable job elucidating this fear, and yet also reveals resilience, love and loyalty.
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