This film is part of our winter series, running at De Uitkijk throughout December and January. This year, our winter series focuses on loneliness, but don’t worry, you can still enjoy warmth and good company at De Uitkijk…!
“I came to take care of the children. Where are they? Why is Madame yelling at me all the time? I’m not a cook. I’m not a cleaner.” The Senegalese woman Diouana has been trapped: she thought she could rise above her impoverished, illiterate origins by following the French couple she works for in Dakar to the Côte d’Azur, but once in France her world quickly shrinks to a dehumanizing minimum.
Black Girl (1966) is the debut film of director Ousmane Sembène and is based on a novel by Sembène himself about a true story. Sembène reveals what lies beneath the appealing charm of supposedly “post-colonial” France. Scenes of Diouana’s present situation alternate with flashbacks of her former life in Senegal, forming a complex critique of the colonial mentality that still persists in the West.
Restored by Cineteca di Bologna/ L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory, in association with the Sembène Estate, Institut National de l’Audiovisuel, INA, Eclair laboratories and the Centre National de Cinématographie. Restoration funded by The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project