Dancehall Queen

Dancehall Queen is a stunning film in which music plays a leading role. Pulsating reggae beats inside and outside the dancehall, exuberant costumes and a busy life in the streets of Kingston are the ingredients for a Cinderella story without a prince or a gilded coach.Life is hard in the ghetto of Kingston, Jamaica’s capital. Marcia, a strong woman who earns her living as street hawker has to raise her two young daughters alone. Over the course of time, she has become dependent on the financial aid of ‘Uncle’ Larry. But now he wants some interest on his investment in the form of sexual favours from her eldest daughter Tanya, just fifteen. Problems pile up when Priest, an unscrupulous brute, wants to drive Marcia off the spot where she sells her wares. When her brother Junior and his friends want to help her, Priest lives up to his threats: Junior’s best friend is killed. To get away from all her cares, Marcia visits a dancehall. Impressed by the show given by the reigning dancehall queen, she decides to lead a double life. A life that will eventually offer her a way out of the ghetto.Dancehall Queen was shot with the convenient digital video camera, so the makers were able to move around the cultural life of Jamaica with a great degree of freedom. The film is the biggest hit in Jamaican film history.