Black girl

Adrián Arce, Ousmane Semène
Senegal | OmeU

In his pio­neer­ing film the great Sene­galese author and direc­tor explores the com­plex dynam­ics of the imme­di­ate post-colo­nial period through the simple, dev­as­tat­ing story of a young woman. Dioua­na lives in Dakar and works as nanny for a rich French family. When her employ­ers move back to France, they take Dioua­na with the. While she looks for­ward to a new cos­mopoli­tan lifestyle, she soon real­izes what it means to be an African. She is like a piece of prop­er­ty in the hands of her employ­ers – the black girl who belongs to…

LA NOIRE DE… is con­sid­ered the first sub-saha­ran film by an African film­mak­er to receive inter­na­tion­al atten­tion. It won the Prix Jean Vigo at Cannes as well as many other awards. While it has its own unique style, it draws much inspi­ra­tion from French New Wave, with bril­liant black & white images and an uncon­ven­tion­al nar­ra­tive. The main actress Thérèse M’Bissine Diop later said that she was social­ly ostra­cized by people in Sene­gal and even her own family for having played in the film.