This short documentary, by Sophia Nahli Allison, is an extraordinary work of cinematic portraiture. In 1991, in South Central Los Angeles, Latasha Harlins, a fifteen-year-old Black girl, was shot and killed by a liquor-store clerk who wrongly accused her of stealing a bottle of orange juice. The film brings out the story of Harlins’s life, as told by two of the people who were closest to her—her cousin Shinese, who grew up alongside her; and her best friend, Ty—whose reminiscences become virtual channellings of Harlins’s voice. Allison’s vision is both historical and personal; with dramatic sequences that are less like reënactments than like imagined memories (along with animations, by Adebukola Bodunrin), the film evokes Harlins’s devotion to her family and to her community and her plans to become a lawyer and an activist. The portrait of Harlins is also a portrait of her neighborhood—and of her absence in it, an irreparable tear in the fabric of private and public life.

— Richard Brody, The New Yorker

"Allison’s experimental style, lush palette, fast-paced editing and tender close-ups on Latasha’s cousins and friends, all now 40-something Black women like me, recreate the loss of Latasha’s innocence."
— Salamishah Tillet, New York Times

"This arresting documentary short is a lyrical celebration of the life of Latasha Harlins."
— Jude Dry, Indiewire

"If you’ve seen anything of Latasha’s life, it’s likely the final seconds of her existence. Allison instead creates a brief, stirring portrait of the fifteen years that preceded them."
— Gabrielle Bruney, Esquire

"This documentary is an invitation to rethink how Black life and death are documented in a society where the media glamorizes violence against Black bodies.”
— Mia Harrison, VICE

"A Love Song For Latasha is experimental, it’s artistic, and it’s a moving tribute to a life that was stolen, not just from Harlins, but from those who loved her.”
— Anna Menta, Decider

“Bold enough to never risk being forgotten again, “A Love Song for Latasha” reinvents notions of living memory.”
— Stephen Saito, MoveableFest