Sugar Cane Alley (Rue Cases-Nègres). 1983. Written and directed by Euzhan Palcy

Film

No upcoming events

Sugar Cane Alley (Rue Cases-Nègres). 1983. Martinique/France. Written and directed by Euzhan Palcy. Courtesy of Photofest

Sugar Cane Alley (Rue Cases-Nègres). 1983. Martinique/France. Written and directed by Euzhan Palcy. Adapted from the novel by Joseph Zobel. With Garry Cadenat, Darling Légitimus, Douta Seck. In French, Martinican Creole; English subtitles. 35mm. 104 min.

On the island of Martinique in the early 1930s, the lush beauty of the landscape masks a harsh socioeconomic reality: while children play, adults endure grueling labor in the sugarcane fields. When a village sage points out that little has changed since the days of slavery, Jose’s grandmother resolves to save her grandchild from a life of unforgiving labor. Euzhan Palcy blends lyrical naturalism with clear-eyed social critique in this feature debut, which won the 1984 César Awards for Best First Work and Best Actress (Darling Légitimus).

This film accompanies A View from the Vaults: The 1980s.

Past events

Mon, Apr 6, 4:00 p.m.

MoMA, Floor T2, Theater 2

The Roy and Niuta Titus Theater 2
Tue, Mar 17, 7:00 p.m.

MoMA, Floor T1, Theater 1

The Roy and Niuta Titus Theater 1

Licensing

If you would like to reproduce an image of a work of art in MoMA’s collection, or an image of a MoMA publication or archival material (including installation views, checklists, and press releases), please contact Art Resource (publication in North America) or Scala Archives (publication in all other geographic locations).

MoMA licenses archival audio and select out of copyright film clips from our film collection. At this time, MoMA produced video cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. All requests to license archival audio or out of copyright film clips should be addressed to Scala Archives at [email protected]. Motion picture film stills cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. For access to motion picture film stills for research purposes, please contact the Film Study Center at [email protected]. For more information about film loans and our Circulating Film and Video Library, please visit https://www.moma.org/research/circulating-film.

If you would like to reproduce text from a MoMA publication, please email [email protected]. If you would like to publish text from MoMA’s archival materials, please fill out this permission form and send to [email protected].