Black Girl

Considered Africa’s first dramatic feature film, Black Girl won Ousmane Sembène the 1966 Jean Vigo Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. It addresses lingering racism in postcolonial Africa in a visual style reminiscent of the French New Wave. Based on Sembène's novel Voltaïque, the film tells of the exile and despair of a Senegalese domestic servant, Diouana (Mbissine Thérèse Diop), who is taken to the Riviera by her French employers. Mistreated and abused by the madam, Diouana feels her life has been reduced to that of a slave, her personal freedoms denied; she chooses the ultimate act of resistance. “There are few endings in all of cinema as powerful and rich as this—brimming with tragic wisdom and latent meaning, with finality and promise, with humor and pain. . . . It is at this point that African cinema begins” (Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader).