Euzhan Palcy (b. Martinique, 1958), who in 1989 became the first black woman director to have her work produced by a major Hollywood studio (with MGM’s A Dry White Season), explores themes of race, gender, and politics from a decidedly feminist perspective. This first U.S. retrospective of Palcy’s work includes a newly restored print of her Rue Cases-Nègres (Sugar Cane Alley), which won a Silver Lion award at the 1983 Venice Film Festival, along with the New York premieres of Les Mariées de I’isles Bourbon (2007), an historical epic about forced marriage in 17th-century France; Parcours de Dissident (2006), about the forgotten history of West Indian patriots during World War II; Siméon (1992), a musical comedy fairytale set in the Caribbean; and the biographical documentary Aime Cesaire, A Voice for History (1994). The series also features A Dry White Season (1989), a key film on South African apartheid; and the made-for-television productions Ruby Bridges (1998), about segregation in New Orleans from the perspective of a young child; and The Killing Yard (2001), which explores events surrounding the 1971 Attica prison uprising. Miss Palcy and special guests will introduce a number of programs in the series.
Organized by Ron Magliozzi, Assistant Curator, and Anne Morra, Associate Curator, Department of Film.