When Michele Prettyman first read Alice Walker's 1982 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Color Purple, she was a student who found the book transformative.
"I do remember feeling like something cracked open," Dr Prettyman told ABC News.
"That there was a sense that something new was happening relative to the pain of black women and a transformative ethos around that pain, that it wasn't just misery and trauma."
Dr Prettyman, who teaches at Fordham University in New York City, with research interests that include African American cinema, black cinema globally and popular culture, says there was something profound about the moment in which Walker wrote the book, with books from so many other seminal black women authors coming out at around the same time.
"There's something happening in the mid to late 70s and early 80s that is cracking open the creative, the transformative power of black women," Dr Prettyman said.
"And so, I read it in that context. And I just remember feeling like, 'Oh, my gosh. All of the feelings that we've had as black women, they are real and they are being sort of spoken to in a way by black women writers that I had never felt before'."
A new take on The Color Purple — in musical form — produced by Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, Scott Sanders and Quincy Jones, and starring Fantasia Barrino as Celie, opens in Australian cinemas on Thursday.
While she's making her motion picture debut, Barrino is reprising her 2005 role from Broadway. Danielle Brooks who plays Sofia in the new film (played by Winfrey in the 1985 film directed by Spielberg) was nominated for a Tony award for playing the same character on Broadway.
"This is the fourth iteration of this really seminal black American text," Dr Prettyman points out.
"There's a heaviness in the sense that it has to address so many audiences, and so many expectations over now 40 years or so.
"So, there's a weight of expectation that I think the film carries with it."
The novel is set in America's South between 1909 and 1947.
"It is a historical epic in that sense. We get to see a version of what some black people actually experienced because while it is not Alice Walker's story per se, she is writing about people in a place and time. That is real," says Dr Prettyman.
"I used to live in Georgia, where she was born and raised. And I've driven through the town that she was born and raised in. And there is just this feeling there.
"So, she is writing about a place and time that had, I think, very significant historical underpinnings.
"It is fundamentally written by a black woman who was speaking to a community that she knew. And that she understood. And hurt people in her family that she understood had gone through things."
In the story, Celie, who faces many hardships, is torn apart from her sister Nettie (Halle Bailey) and her children but finds extraordinary strength and forms a new sisterhood with sultry singer Shug Avery (Taraji P Henson) and Sofia, who also has a powerful and heartbreaking character arc.
"What Celie undergoes, I think, in some ways, it's almost taken for granted," Dr Prettyman says.
"It's traumatic. And yet the love that she has for her sister persists, across the miles, across the decades.
"I mean, it is a female love story. It really is about all kinds of kinship and connectivity and communion between women. And to me, that's invaluable."
An American tale that has resonated just as strongly in Australia
Celie's journey resonates with Nicholah Wasarirevu, who lives in Perth and is originally from Zimbabwe.
"I believe it's resonated with people here because of the themes within the film," Ms Wasarirevu told ABC News.
"And when we look at the themes of abuse, the themes of racism, oppression, those themes are not limited to a geographical representation.
"I can see myself as Celie, having experienced childhood sexual abuse, and going through that journey with mental health, where getting support for mental health within my community was sort of like a taboo."
As the CEO and founder of Sisters Healing Space, Ms Wasarirevu has created a platform that provides culturally safe therapy services for minority and marginalised groups in Australia, striving to destigmatise mental health and wellness.
Sisters Healing Space is collaborating with other organisations and the community to put on a series of nationwide screenings of The Color Purple that will be held on February 3 and 4.
Having read the book and watched the earlier film, Ms Wasarirevu is excited to see this re-imagining of the musical on the silver screen.
"What really stood out to me in The Color Purple was the themes in the film… of hope, resilience, and the portrayal of sisterhood, as well as communities coming together.
"And I think one of the highlights of the themes in the film that really stood out was the abuse, as well as the systemic racism and oppression that the characters had experienced.
"And I remember a quote that I read when I read the book, and also when I watched the film, when Celie said to Shug, 'But I don't know how to fight, all I know how to do is stay alive'.
"And that really stood out to me when we currently look at the current rates of family and domestic violence.
"I like to say that it takes a village to raise a child. But it also takes that same village to be a voice of change for generations breaking that cycle of family violence, and that's a responsibility we all share."
Ms Wasarirevu says even if people can't relate personally to the story, there is a strong theme that will touch most.
"The theme of finding one's voice and inner strength and overcoming life's challenges, I think it resonates with a lot of people," she said.
"That's a journey that we are all going through."
The Color Purple is in cinemas now.