"Once Upon a Time When We Were Colored" (1996): Set in the deep American South, over the years 1946-1962, and told as biography, this is the story of one boy's memories of being raised in the Cotton & Bible Belt. He's poor, his family is in pieces, he's Black, he's surrounded by the KKK
and yet, this is a soft, even soft-focus look back at the people who DID provide community family, did not dwell on their poverty nor make their race the focal point of a normal day. We are so accustomed to angry, relentlessly violent films about the racial divides, this film could easily be taken as a Hallmark Card presentation
but SOMETHING about it tells me otherwise. Yes, problems are depicted, and yes, the times they were a-changin', but not as fast or dramatically as we've come to accept from the quick flip of a few pages in history class. I LIKE the pace of this film. It's slow, warm, often funny, occasionally sugary, sometimes sad or maddening, but for the most part it's a nostalgic look back at the GOOD parts of black author's childhood.