Selah and the Spades.      4 stars

One movie that was something of a surprise is Selah and the Spades. It was written and directed by a very young filmmaker named Tayarisha Poe who is probably all of 28. She was present for the Q&A afterwards. The story takes place is an exclusive boarding school where the students are self divided into 5 different factions that each perform their own illicit activity. Selah, a seventeen year old African American girl is the leader of the Spades, the faction that supplies the illegal drugs to students. Since she is a senior she needs to find her successor before graduation. She finds Paloma, a new student who has transferred into the school and believes she is good material for a Spade. There is plenty of mean girl activity and power plays and betrayals in the time that follows that culminates in a conflict at an unsponsored school prom that will test the characters` loyalty and trust to one another. For someone that is so young I was very impressed by the quality of the final product. The director had been working on the idea since she was in college. I only hope to hear more of her work in coming years.