P-Star Rising Gabriel Noble, USA, 2009, 84 minutes
Saturday, May 8 | 6:30pm | Pacific Cinémathèque
An adorable yet precocious 9-year-old Priscilla, tells her single-father, Jesse, “I am going to become a rapper and fulfill your dreams of succeeding in the music business.” Moved by Priscilla’s undeniable passion and impressed with her natural talent, he begins to teach her all he knows about rapping. In the four years that follow there is no question that rapping has brought Priscilla closer to her previously estranged father, and that her success has made him proud. Before our eyes, this father-daughter duo go from a one-bedroom shelter in Harlem to a 4 bedroom apartment, from food stamps to shopping sprees, from rapping on street corners to sold out night clubs, and from sneaking under train turnstiles without the $2 fare, to being driven around in tinted window SUVs. All they know is that the ride has just begun.
Unfortunately, many of the curves and bumps on their journey are predictable. The pint-sized Puerto Rican princess ends up with the strikingly appropriate moniker of “young feminist phenomenon.” Priscilla is forced to deal with the same pressures of women who are twice her size and four times her age. With her mother being out of the picture, she finds herself as the breadwinner in the family, providing for her father and an older sister who is attempting to make the most of life with a learning disability. Moreover, Priscilla bares the burden of trying to succeed for the sake of her dad; Jesse bitterly reflects on how he never was given the respect he deserved as a rapper himself. While gaining in international fame, P-Star Rising contains enough performance footage to show the great talent and drive displayed by this young star. Despite the odds, there is hope for our little protagonist, who is wise enough to cherish her childhood.
Best Documentary Award, 2009 Sound Unseen Festival
Crystal Heart Award for Best Documentary, 2009 Heartland Film Festival
Classified for younger audiences. No membership required.
“It’s easy to assume we are about to watch the story of the rise to fame of a known artist whose name is still unfamiliar to us. But over the course of the next 83 minutes, what emerges is not the story on one girl but of a family — with much stacked against them — that manages to prevail.
- NY Daily News
Director’s biography
A graduate of UCLA, Gabriel Noble founded and served as Artistic Director of Equal Opportunity Productions, whose mission is to use arts education to empower youth in Los Angeles, Cuba, and South Africa. He went on to serve as Assistant Director on the narrative film, On The Outs, nominated for IFP Indie Spirit award, Gotham Award, and recipient of the Grand Prize Slamdance Festival. Noble produced Death of Two Sons, an exploration of the death of Amadou Diallo, executive produced by HBO. His directorial debut was the feature documentary, Autumn’s Eyes, the story of losing a teenage mother to prison through the perspective of her three-year-old daughter.
