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‘Queen of Glory’ Review: Back to the Bronx

In the writer-director Nana Mensah’s amusing and astute feature debut, a death forces a reckoning for a brainy young Ghanaian-American living in both worlds.

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By Lisa Kennedy

Molecular neuro-oncologist Sarah Obeng is very smart. But in the subtle delight “Queen of Glory” — written and directed by its lead actor, Nana Mensah — the American daughter of Ghanaian parents can be foolish, too. Take her married boyfriend and university colleague, Lyle (Adam Leon): He’s simply not worthy.

Sarah is organizing their relocation to his next job when she learns of her mother’s death. Now she must decamp from Manhattan’s Upper West Side to the Bronx to plan her mother’s funeral, deal with her father (Oberon K.A. Adjepong) and decide what to do with her mother’s home, her Christian bookstore and the store’s grateful employee, Pitt (Meeko Gattuso). Pitt especially gladdens as the former inmate with the face tattoos and creative side gig.

The child of Ghanaian parents herself, Mensah traverses the polyglot turf well, infusing details with astute affection and understated laughs. Even the occasional slapstick proves more sweet than silly.

Sarah’s return to the neighborhood of immigrant melding and cultural adjacency stirs her feelings of being an outsider but at the same time awakens her sense of community. Mensah pokes gentle fun at her heroine and treats the failings of some of the menfolk here with deadpan wit and little rancor.

Ghanaian drums and dance set a sonic and visual motif that recurs, at once disruption and glue. With so much to do, Sarah has had little time for grief. When her reality, the drumming and the movie’s archival images of African gatherings finally converge, a mother, a motherland and a daughter get their emotional due.

Queen of Glory Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 18 minutes. In theaters.

‘Queen of Glory’ Review: A Winning Indie About Immigrant Identity

A Ghanaian-American scientist must cope with death, betrayal and cultural expectations in writer/director/star Nana Mensah’s winning indie.

By Nick Schager

Nick Schager

Film Critic

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A Columbia U. doctoral student grapples with cultural expectations, demands and pressures while carving out her own path in “ Queen of Glory ,” writer-director-star Nana Mensah ’s inviting and understated indie about immigrant identity anxieties. With a lived-in feel for the Bronx community in which her story takes place, the filmmaker generates endearing pathos from a story whose familiarity is offset by its humor and authenticity. Its small scale will likely constrain its box-office fortunes, but it’s precisely the type of under-the-radar gem that festivals such as Tribeca (where it debuts) were made to spotlight.

Though thriving in the Ivy League, Sarah (Mensah) intends to relocate to Ohio to be with her colleague/boyfriend Lyle (Adam Leon). That plan is complicated first by the fact that Lyle is married with children, and subsequently by the unexpected death of her beloved Ghanaian-American mother. Sarah is thus tasked with handling her mom’s funeral and estate, the former necessitating a week-long event involving two gatherings (one that sounds akin to a wedding, replete with gifts), and the latter requiring her to do something with her mom’s King of Glory Christian bookstore, whose awning’s misspellings are one of the proceedings’ many realistic touches.

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Sarah’s attempt to hold her life together is made even more difficult by the arrival of her father Godwin (Oberon K.A. Adjepong), who’s long lived in his native Ghana and who, like other members of this close-knit area, makes not-so-subtle comments about her childlessness and her weight (causing her to take routine jogs around the neighborhood). She finds some solace and kindness at King of Glory via Pitt (Meeko Gattuso), a facially tattooed ex-con employee who remains intensely loyal to her mother. Yet even their budding friendship — solidified over days and nights tending to faithful customers, and eating some of Pitt’s homemade treats — has potential disaster written all over, given that Sarah is covertly trying to sell the place.

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“Queen of Glory” establishes these multiple dilemmas for Sarah and then tenderly charts her efforts to find a way through them. From the interactions of her characters, to the frequent cutaways to black-and-white and color montages of people practicing funeral rites in Ghana, Mensah evokes the intricate ties that bind immigrants to their heritages, and the way those connections can both aid and hinder personal growth and progress. The writer-director’s concise storytelling captures that complicated stew with next to no wasted gestures or diversions, and her lensing (courtesy of Cybel Martin) conveys Sarah’s disconnected and isolated circumstances with unfussy clarity.

Such dramatic efficiency extends to the material’s underlying issues regarding race and gender, which are easy to glean but go shrewdly unremarked upon, such that they emerge naturally from the action at hand. Often set to African drumming, and using sharp montages and pans through Bronx streets to conjure a feel for this multicultural enclave, “Queen of Glory” makes the most of its modest premise, and that also holds true of its performances. In a charismatic supporting turn, Gattuso brings layers of unexpected gentleness to Pitt, whose rapport with Sarah is one of the film’s highlights. Similarly winning is Anya Migdal as Tanya, a childhood acquaintance of Sarah’s and the matriarch of a Russian clan whose own bustling household further deepens one’s sense of these characters’ messy, stressful and happy lives.

It’s Mensah’s heartfelt lead performance, however, that elevates “Queen of Glory.” Refusing to cast her protagonist as a kooky movie character, she embodies Sarah as a fully fleshed-out woman coping with a collection of ups and downs that are at once deeply rooted in her Ghanaian-American experience, and universal in nature.

Reviewed in Tribeca Festival (online), June 14, 2021. Running time: 78 MIN.

• Production: A Magnolia Pictures Int'l release of a Cape Coast Media presentation. Producer: Jamund Washington, Kelley Robins Hicks, Baff Akoto, Nana Mensah, Anya Migdal. Executive producer: Lidz-Ama Appiah. Co-producers: Cooper Troxell.
• Crew: Director, writer: Nana Mensah. Camera: Cybel Martin. Editor: Cooper Troxell.
• With: Nana Mensah, Meeko Gattuso, Oberon KA Adjepong, Adam Leon.

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Nana Mensah directs and stars in this film about a Ghanaian American woman who returns to the New York City neighborhood she grew up in after the death of her mother.

By Lovia Gyarkye

Lovia Gyarkye

Arts & Culture Critic

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The easiest way to begin this review of Queen of Glory , which debuted at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival, would be to discuss how successfully it captures a specific kind of immigrant experience. To introduce the central character, Sarah Obeng, a woman caught between two worlds — the American, largely white, one of her Columbia University graduate program and the Ghanaian one of her home in the Bronx. To express my admiration at how adeptly the film grapples with Sarah’s humanity, and how Nana Mensah, the film’s creator, director and lead, avoids the usual tropes of “West Africans in America” narratives by leaning into the small details of Ghanaian life, both on the continent and in the States.

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But all that wouldn’t adequately capture the thrill I felt at seeing parts of my own Ghanaian American experience rendered with such precision that watching the movie felt almost scandalous. At one point, I called my mother over FaceTime and pointed the camera at the screen. “Can you believe,” I asked between chuckles, “someone’s written you into a movie?”

Queen of Glory

Venue: Tribeca Film Festival (U.S. Narrative Competition) Cast: Nana Mensah, Meeko Gattuso, Oberon KA Adjepong, Adam Leon Director: Nana Mensah Screenwriter: Nana Mensah

At its core, Mensah’s tightly conceived, witty and compassionate dark comedy is a love letter to children of Ghanaian immigrants and to the Bronx, the borough in which she and her protagonist grew up. It’s a clear-eyed film of intimate, culturally specific moments — from the adowa funeral dancer swaying in the opening scenes to the lengthy prayers over light soup — that delicately build a portrait of a young woman wading through grief and finding bits of herself in the process.

At the beginning of the film, Sarah is planning to drop out of grad school and move to Ohio with her married lover, Lyle (Adam Leon), who has been offered a university teaching position there. That changes when she gets a phone call informing her that her mother, Grace, has suddenly died from an aneurysm. The news throws Sarah for a loop and suddenly the life she’s mapped out for herself seems less feasible, if not completely implausible. Instead of running off to the Midwest, Sarah returns to her childhood home in the Bronx and tries to navigate the aftermath of her mother’s death, including planning a traditional funeral and running her family’s Christian bookstore.

Queen of Glory cleverly mixes humor with somber and poignant moments. Mensah, whom I remember as Sade in the YouTube series An African City , naturally assumes the role of a stubborn, slightly out-of-place Ghanaian woman forced to confront the issues she’s desperately been trying to escape. Many of the best moments reminded me of Michaela Coel’s Chewing Gum and Issa Rae’s Awkward Black Girl web series, both of which excelled at examining stories of Black women without relying exclusively on trauma.

Take an early scene, when Sarah goes to Tracey Towers — which many Bronxites will know as Little Ghana — to drop off a suitcase stuffed with toothpaste, crisp white shirts and aloe vera soap at her aunt’s apartment. “Are you hungry?” Auntie Christie (Christie Mensah) asks Sarah when the latter walks through the door. Despite Sarah’s calm insistence that she isn’t, her aunt offers her light soup anyway and launches into a lengthy, dramatic prayer. Sarah inhales sharply and gives her aunt a deeply confused look.

After prayer, Christie asks her niece to get on a scale so they can figure out the exact weight of the suitcase. Sarah refuses, hoping to avoid any comments on her body, and Christie later tells Sarah’s father (Oberon K.A. Adjepong) that his daughter is acting like an oburoni, or white person. The blank stares Sarah and Christie exchange, their clipped sentences and that final insult efficiently establish Sarah’s tense relationship with her family. With them, she is demure and insecure — a sharp contrast to her no-nonsense attitude with her colleagues and lover.

Queen of Glory would succeed if it relied alone on amusing and sharp moments like these, but the film’s distinctiveness comes from how it also considers the Bronx community in which it takes place. After overcoming the initial shock of her mother’s death, Sarah enters a hyper-productive trance, moving quickly to sort through her mom’s affairs. Part of her inheritance includes a Christian bookstore, which Sarah, with the help of the shop’s one employee, Pitt (Meeko Gattuso), comes to understand is an important pillar of the neighborhood. We learn about Sarah’s mom through the stories Pitt and the regular visitors share — how she hired Pitt after he came home from prison, how she indiscriminately offered counsel and how over the years the store functioned as a pseudo-community-center.

Favoring wide shots that engulf Sarah within her surroundings and bolster the sense that she’s continuously overwhelmed, cinematographer Cybel Martin elegantly captures the energy of both Pelham Parkway, the neighborhood in which the bookstore sits, and Sarah’s chaotic life. The clips of Ghanaian funerary ceremonies, interspersed throughout the film, visually bridge Sarah’s own planning efforts to customs abroad, while also highlighting the myriad ways Ghanaians celebrate and mourn the dead. The effect is haunting.

As Sarah spends more time in the Bronx — both in her childhood home and at the shop — she begins to rethink her life’s trajectory and reconsider her initial desperation to escape. She also eases into her inherited responsibilities and slowly adopts her mother’s community. At Grace’s funeral, which takes place near the film’s end, a handsomely done-up Sarah, adorned with gold jewelry and clothed in a red and black dress, sways to the rhythmic drumbeat and lets sadness overtake her. It’s clear something has shifted and that her grief, still palpable, is now anchored by a deep sense of self-awareness.

Full credits

Venue: Tribeca Film Festival (U.S. Narrative Competition) Production companies: Cape Coast Media Cast: Nana Mensah, Meeko Gattuso, Oberon KA Adjepong, Adam Leon Directors: Nana Mensah Screenwriter: Nana Mensah Producers: Jamund Washington, Kelley Robins Hicks, Baff Akoto, Anya Migdal Director of photography: Cybel Martin Production designer: Katie Hickman Editor: Cooper Troxell Sales: Magnolia Pictures International

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Queen of Glory Reviews

The quiet beauty in Queen of Glory lies in its nuanced picture of selfhood and identity.

Full Review | Aug 6, 2024

A modest but effective portrayal of reverse culture shock.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | May 1, 2023

Queen of Glory is glorious, with a vivid depiction of self-discovery through the eyes of its secondary characters that never patronizes them or its main character.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Jan 4, 2023

Mensah's description of a particular community is a large part of the movie's appeal, but she also brings a light touch to the usual stuff of films about modern women facing life's hassles.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 6, 2022

It is a slight film but a very likeable one.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 2, 2022

Queen of Glory is an observational insight into a family and community. Led by understated performances from Mensah and the supporting cast, this film is a dazzling gem in modern independent cinema.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 30, 2022

Remember the name Nana Mensah — as an actor, writer and director, Queen Of Glory is a hugely impressive calling card.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 29, 2022

Mensah dodges the broad clichés of the immigrant experience and deals subtly with the racism and sexism that Sarah has had to navigate to get to her place in American academia. It’s also a very unflashy piece of film-making.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 26, 2022

A low-budget gem whose glory lies in its own roughness.

For such a slender film –just 78 minutes long – it delivers more than it promises.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 23, 2022

As happens time and again in this quietly effective film, delving beneath the surface of things can sometimes reveal a little slice of heaven on Earth.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Aug 8, 2022

Mensah's charisma, dry wit, and flawed but warm heart make for an appealing and relatable screen heroine.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 6, 2022

Nana Mensah has crafted a very personal tale with real life-inspired aspects of NYC's ex-pat and first-generation Ghanaian community. Lingering close-ups on Mensah serve almost as forced insights or snapshots into her changing emotional state.

Full Review | Jul 25, 2022

Working with the cinematographer Cybel Martin, [Mensah] realizes a distinctive style that’s as memorable as the drama: she stages overlapping layers of activity in static frames that conjure poise amid turmoil.

[Nana Mensah] is so full of immense energy, and she brings that to every frame of this film.

Full Review | Jul 22, 2022

This independent comedy drama addresses personal tragedy and the formation of unexpected friendships in a believable way.

Full Review | Jul 21, 2022

There is much to praise, but more to criticize.

Full Review | Jul 18, 2022

First-time director Nana Mensah's Queen of Glory is a small but efficient film.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 15, 2022

Actress and first-time director Nana Mensah is entirely believable as an overwhelmed young woman who’s a fish out of water in her own culture

Full Review | Jul 14, 2022

The child of Ghanaian parents herself, Mensah traverses the polyglot turf well, infusing details with astute affection and understated laughs. Even the occasional slapstick proves more sweet than silly.

Queen Of Glory Review

If there’s any justice, Queen Of Glory will be a head-turning directorial debut for writer/director/star Nana Mensah. It’s part love-letter to her heritage as a Ghanaian-American woman, part rumination on grief and life, part drily funny musing on Millennial angst, and every bit a typical New-York-indie kind of film. It’s beautifully shot on 35mm with an earthy palette and lots of autumnal colours, brownstone stoops and suburban streets — but Mensah’s empathetic touch makes everything feel lived-in.

With considerable poise and presence, she plays Sarah, directing herself as a listless academic going nowhere. At work, she is quite literally working on the cure for cancer; at home, she is pursuing an obviously doomed extramarital affair and mocked by multiple aunties wondering when she’ll finally have babies and lose some weight. Mensah’s performance alone feels noteworthy: an exercise in measure and control, she perfectly deadpans her way through moments of mild catastrophe, a groundswell of emotion just below the surface.

What’s so impressive here is the care and attention Mensah affords all her characters.

When Sarah’s mother dies suddenly, Sarah’s life has to be recalibrated, having inherited a Christian bookshop she neither wants nor understands. As an atheist scientist, she’s ready to sell up as soon as possible, but life has other plans. What’s so impressive here is the care and attention Mensah affords all her characters, from the heavily face-tattooed ex-con co-worker who surpasses Sarah’s early prejudices, to the old ladies who use the bookshop as a place of community.

The film delicately explores the immigrant experience and questions of identity — Sarah organises both a traditional Ghanaian funeral and a “white people’s funeral” — and there are some lovely scenes with childhood family friends with Russian heritage, a similar-but-different experience of the New York melting-pot. But it wears these themes lightly, prioritising its characters over any kind of ‘message’. This is more a film to be felt than analysed. By the emotional end, it is felt very deeply indeed.

Queen of Glory review – authentic comedy of a second-generation immigrant

Writer-director Nana Mensah's low-budget debut marks her as a talent to watch, though her film is slightly marred by its third act

25 Aug 2022

Directed, written by, and starring Nana Mensah, Queen of Glory is a real one-woman show. Her protagonist Sarah is a PhD student and lecturer at Columbia University who returns to the Bronx where she grew up after her mother dies suddenly. Here she finds herself torn between following her career, with new prospects in Ohio (and a flaky romance with an uncommitted older professor), and re-affirming her roots as a Ghanaian-American by staying in New York. Much of the film is rooted in Mensah’s own life: the Christian bookstore her character inherits belongs to Mensah’s actual parents, and the lived-in texture of the film and its dialogue resonates throughout.

Mensah gracefully and humorously captures that experience of how being born a second-generation immigrant moulds and shapes one’s life. There’s that gentle sense of shame at not quite being up to speed on your parents’ cultural practices or language (an early scene of Sarah interacting with her aunts sees her looking painfully awkward). There’s the perpetual sense of confusion and adriftness about life in the host country, a constant insecurity (as evidenced by her uneasy romantic attachment). There’s also the pressure to enact all the traditions of the old country, whilst questioning whether one is a fake for doing so – a major subplot concerns Sarah’s estranged father Godwin (Oberon K. A. Adjepong) pressuring her to organise a traditional Ghanaian funeral, whilst doing precisely nothing to help.

The film makes the most of its low-budget origins, leaning on the charms of its supporting cast alongside Mensah’s considerable star talent – comfortable holding the camera’s gaze and exquisitely capturing Sarah’s rootlessness, her eyes often expressing a degree of lostness even as she gets herself involved in awkwardly humorous situations. Of that supporting cast, the most impressive is Pitt (Meeko Gattuso), an ex-con who is the Christian bookstore’s sole employee. He radiates warmth, gravitas, and authenticity, with a screen presence that is unhurried and open, the film consciously using his heavily-tattooed face to send up both Sarah’s and the audience’s class and racial assumptions. It’s that relationship which unexpectedly provides the heart of the film, the bookstore itself a pillar of the community, capturing the strange mix of sincerity and commercial kitsch that is so fundamental to Christianity in the United States.

It's a shame then, that it’s also the relationship with Pitt where the film ultimately cheats itself in the third act, in an ending that attempts to resolve far too much for its own good – a peculiar affliction frequently found in many American indies that you might be tempted to call “Sundancitis” (even if Queen of Glory did premiere at Tribeca). The ambiguity and complexity of Sarah’s decision in coming closer to her Ghanaian roots is lovingly-drawn, exemplified by her emotional outpouring during the traditional funeral. But it is undone by the decision to reduce Meeko into a generic ex-con-with-a-heart-of-gold, who imparts empathy and wisdom, reducing all that loving complexity to a Hallmark greeting card. It’s disappointing that an otherwise smart and genuine film cheapens itself so badly at the final hurdle – though at this point it’s worth remembering that the journey itself has been worthwhile.

Queen of Glory is released in UK cinemas on 26 August.

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• Bohemia Media

Summary Sarah Obeng (Nana Mensah), a doctoral student at Columbia University, is weeks away from following her very married boyfriend to Ohio when her mother suddenly passes away. Her inheritance? King of Glory, a small Christian bookstore serving a Ghanaian immigrant community in the Bronx. Tasked with arranging her mother's funeral according t ... Read More

Directed By : Nana Mensah

Written By : Nana Mensah

Queen of Glory

Where to watch, nana mensah, sarah obeng.

Madeline Weinstein

Elia monte-brown, prof. sangita goel, daniel reece, russell g. jones, hezekiah falusi, alok tewari, oberon k.a. adjepong, godwin obeng, anya migdal, tanya malinova-thayer, mia y. anderson, maria-christina oliveras, jocelyn kuritsky, hermana sofia, emma jacobs, ian lassiter, eric thayer, sharina martin, prof. christina hastings-goel, alice lebedev-migdal, alice thayer, tarina milo, julia mueller, vincent leong, real estate investor 2, critic reviews.

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Queen of Glory

For this feature, her directorial début, Nana Mensah also wrote the script and plays the lead role, of Sarah Obeng, a young woman who grew up in a Ghanaian community in the Bronx. Sarah, a graduate student in molecular neuro-oncology at Columbia, is about to move to Ohio with her partner, Lyle (Adam Leon), who is married but planning to leave his wife. But, when Sarah’s mother dies suddenly, Sarah inherits her house and her thriving Christian bookstore—and is forced into new relationships with a neighborhood that she has distanced herself from and an extended family that she no longer knows. She also develops a friendship with the bookstore’s employee, Pitt (Meeko Gattuso); her new responsibilities and connections force her to reëvaluate her romantic and professional choices. Much of the story is pat and the performances fluctuate between broad comedy and sentimental earnestness, but Mensah looks in loving yet critical detail at the milieu in which she herself was raised and, working with the cinematographer Cybel Martin, realizes a distinctive style that’s as memorable as the drama: she stages overlapping layers of activity in static frames that conjure poise amid turmoil. (In theatrical release.)

Queen of Glory

By Alan Ng | July 13, 2022

As immigrants to America, our stories are as similar as they are different. Nana Mensah’s  Queen of Glory  tells a unique and deeply personal account of an immigrant as well as a different take on being African-American.

Sarah (Nana Mensah), the daughter of Ghanaian immigrants, is currently working on her Ivy League Doctorate. Life couldn’t be better for her. She has a stable career and is working on her dissertation. She’ll soon be moving to Ohio with her boyfriend — who’s currently married (but he’ll break up soon, right?). Out of nowhere, Sarah receives news that her mother passed away and left Sarah her home in the Bronx and her Christian bookstore. Making matters worse, Sarah’s father, Godwin (Oberon K.A. Adjepong), moves in with her to help get her mother’s affairs in order and take care of the family and guests coming in for the funeral.

Wanting to wrap things up quickly, Sarah’s top priority is to sell the bookstore. It has only one employee, Pitt (Meeko), as with all the compassion in the world, Sarah’s mother was the only person willing to give the former convict a job. Pitt is an accomplished baker with his Bible cookies, which contains a magical ingredient that may or may not be weed. With weeks before she moves away with her married boyfriend, Sarah must sell the bookstore, fire Pitt, work out this friendship with her slightly racist neighbors, and organize a proper Ghanaian burial ceremony to please the elders.

Queen of Glory  also explores all of Sarah’s daddy issues, which quickly rise to the top. She is still upset that Godwin left them to move back to Ghana, while Godwin thinks she’s wasting her time in the U.S. and insists she move back. There’s an incredible moment when Godwin realizes that Sarah is not a little girl anymore.

“… Sarah must sell the bookstore, fire Pitt, work out this friendship with her slightly racist neighbors, and organize a proper Ghanaian burial ceremony …”

Sarah’s arc is not your typical African-American tale. It’s refreshing to see the breadth of narratives of the immigrant and minority community, which don’t always feel so cookie-cutter. Depending on when one’s family arrived, the stories are always distinct, and the hope of what America offers is also viewed differently. Writer/director/star Mensah describes herself as the “hyphen” in African-American as she is a first-generation Ghanaian but very American in terms of her education and upbringing. Sarah’s mother was a devout Christian, and she is forced to learn lessons in compassion and forgiveness from her mother’s legacy. On her father’s side, he reminds Sarah of her heritage as she immerses herself in the Ghanaian traditions and rituals.

At the same time, Sarah is trying to find herself as an American and blends all three aspects of her parents and herself in the process. At first, she allowed herself to get caught up in the drama of life while pursuing the ambitions of the post-graduate degree she was chasing. Her mother’s death was the catalyst she needed to find the true Sarah.

No doubt,  Queen of Glory   has a very personal feel to its plotting. Mensah is absolutely brilliant as Sarah. Everything Mensah has to “say” about Sarah can be “seen” on the screen. Her path to self-discovery is played out brilliantly with very little dialogue in the ultimate display of “show, don’t tell.” Her take on the character is insightful and often humorous. The narrative is all in the performance and, at times, in some inventive storytelling devices with the camera. I’m referring to the dinner with her boyfriend and how everything you need to know is told in quick, silent flashbacks.

In her feature directorial debut, Mensah put her heart and experience out there on the big screen. With  Queen of Glory , she brilliantly drives her narrative in subtle ways and uses the medium of film in ways you wouldn’t expect from a first-time filmmaker.

For screening information, visit the Queen of Glory page at Film Movement .

Queen of Glory (2022)

Directed and Written: Nana Mensah

Starring: Nana Mensah, Meeko Gattuso, Oberon K.A. Adjepong, etc.

Movie score: 8.5/10

"…Mensah is absolutely brilliant as Sarah."

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Queen of Glory

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Release date

26 th August 2022

Ghanian-America Sarah (writer and director Nana Mensah) is preparing to leave her life in New York behind alongside her job teaching at university to move across the country. However, her plans are put on hold after her mother unexpectedly passes away. In the fallout, Sarah is left to deal with her mother’s Christian bookstore and the constant demands of her dad (Oberon KA Adjepong), who’s travelled from Accra for the funeral and expects to be waited on constantly. Though running at a snappy 80 minutes, Mensah’s wry drama packs in a lot of thoughtful meditations on family and community to heart-warming effect.

There’s a grungy and lo-fi appearance to this film’s presentation. Everything is shown as plainly as possible. In most cases, the camera will linger on one shot for an entire scene. There are no flashy tricks or over-the-top style here. What the filmmaker has created is an incredibly down-to-earth story that’s rooted in her own personal experiences. Casting her own aunt in a supporting role alongside featuring her own parents’ bookstore as a key location only adds to the sense of authenticity Mensah has crafted.

Though Sarah is initially reluctant to spend time at the bookstore with its one employee (an ex-convict named Pitt played by Meeko Gattuso) and her family, she does ultimately warm up to them. While this sounds like an inevitable course for the plot to follow, there’s nothing clichéd about how these events are handled. The script treats each of the characters with a wry sense of humour and loving tenderness, with Sarah’s interactions with her father being some of the funniest and most intimate moments to be found.

Mensah has packed a lot into her film, though the script is never about any one aspect. Rather, Queen of Glory is an observational insight into a family and community. Led by understated performances from Mensah and the supporting cast, this film is a dazzling gem in modern independent cinema.

Andrew Murray

Queen of Glory is released in select cinemas on 26 th August 2022.

Watch the trailer for Queen of Glory here:

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Queen of Glory (2022)

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Queen of Glory Movie

Who's Involved:

Adam Leon, Ward Horton, Nana Mensah, Meeko Gattuso, Oberon K.A. Adjepong, Russell G. Jones

Release Date:

Friday, July 15, 2022 New York

Plot: What's the story about?

Ghanaian-American Sarah is all set to abandon her Ivy League doctoral program to follow her married lover across the country. Her plans are derailed, however when her mother’s sudden death leaves her the owner of a neighborhood bookshop in the Bronx.

official plot version from filmmovement.com

4.00 / 5 stars ( 2 users)

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Who stars in Queen of Glory: Cast List

Nana Mensah

Presumed Innocent (series)  

Meeko Gattuso

Russell G. Jones

Oberon K.A. Adjepong

Ward Horton

Annabelle, Bakery in Brooklyn  

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• 2022 - April : The film was set to Completed  status.

Queen of Glory Release Date: When was the film released?

Queen of Glory was a New York release in 2022 on Friday, July 15, 2022 . There were 18 other movies released on the same date, including Mrs. Harris Goes To Paris , Where The Crawdads Sing and Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank .

Queen of Glory DVD & Blu-ray Release Date: When was the film released?

Queen of Glory was released on DVD & Blu-ray on Tuesday, November 15 , 2022 .

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