This beautifully understated debut feature from Channing Godfrey Peoples presents a gorgeous and timely portrait of black American girlhood in a year marked by a resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement. It tells the story of a former beauty queen and single mother preparing her own teenage daughter for a local pageant.

For Turquoise Jones (Nicole Beharie) winning the Miss Juneteenth beauty pageant some 15 years earlier represented the pinnacle of her existence. Born to a poor family in a predominantly black neighbourhood in Texas, Turquoise was offered a scholarship to a university of her choice as part of her prize, but as fate would have it, life didn’t really turn out the way she had hoped.

Still reeling from the lost opportunity, Turquoise pins all her hopes on Kai (a fantastic performance by newcomer Alexis Chikaeze), her rebellious 14 year old daughter as she insists that the teenager enters the very same pageant in the hope of winning a scholarship.

As the contest approaches, it soon transpires that Kai has very little interest in taking part in the archaic event which pits young black women against each other by teaching them outdated values and etiquettes. Meanwhile, Turquoise is still struggling to let go of her destructive relationship with Kai’s deadbeat father Ronnie (Kendrick Sampson) all the while fending off advances from Bacon (Akron Watson), her besotted boss at the local funeral parlour.

On the surface Miss Juneteenth might appear like the sort of story we’ve seen done a million times before, but underneath all the contrivances, there is a truly heartfelt story of resilience and triumph over adversity at the heart of the film. Godfrey Peoples does a fantastic job in tackling some interesting themes surrounding race and emancipation with commendable subtly and attention to detail.

From the significance of Juneteenth - a national holiday celebrating the emancipation of slaves in the United States - to more contemporary feminist themes, Godfrey Peoples knows her subject inside out and navigates each of these themes with frightening ease and incredible maturity.

Beharie, who starred in Steve McQueen’s award winning drama Shame almost a decade ago, here delivers a truly fantastic turn. As Turquoise she gives a gorgeously understated, reflective and at times truly mesmerising turn which will leave audiences wondering where has she been hiding all these years.

Channing Godfrey Peoples has succeeded in making one of the most insightful, accessible and truly compelling films of the year. The film owes most of its appeal to its ability to navigate some rather thorny post-race themes under the guise of a breezy social drama.