Black Girl (1966)

Original title

La Noire de...

Directed by

Ousmane Sembène

Genre

drama film

Country

Senegal, France

Runtime

1h 05m

Rated

NR

Rating

7.2 of 10 from 176 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A young Senegalese woman moves from Dakar to work for a French couple in Antibes. She expects a cosmopolitan life but is forced into servitude and becomes trapped in an alienating situation.

melancholictenseslow-burnclaustrophobicbleakunsettlingalienatingseriousreflective

What happens

Black Girl (French: La noire de..., lit. 'Black girl of...') is a 1966 drama film, written and directed by Senegalese filmmaker Ousmane Sembène in his feature directorial debut. It is based on a short story from Sembène's 1962 collection Voltaique, which was in turn inspired by a real life incident. It stars Mbissine Thérèse Diop as Diouana, a young Senegalese woman who moves from her native Dakar to Antibes, France, to work for a French couple. In France, Diouana hopes to continue her former job as a nanny and anticipates a new cosmopolitan lifestyle. However, upon her arrival in Antibes, Diouana experiences harsh treatment from the couple, who force her to work as a servant. She becomes increasingly aware of her constrained and alienated situation and starts to question her life in France. Black Girl is often considered the first Sub-Saharan African film by an African filmmaker to receive international attention. Although it was poorly received by Western film critics upon its initial release, by the 2010s it came to be seen as a classic of world cinema. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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