Black Girl

La Noire de...

Included in Sight and Sound’s 2022 poll of the greatest films of all time, a timeless and influential classic of African cinema.

  • Director

    Ousmane Sembène

  • With

    Mbissine Thérèse Diop, Anne-Marie Jelinek, Robert Fontaine

  • Senegal-France 1966. 65min

  • Digital 4K

  • Certificate

    15

  • English subtitles

A young Senegalese girl moves to France to work for a white married couple, only to find herself incarcerated in their apartment, silenced and subjected to harrowing racial abuse. Sembène’s feature debut, influenced by the French New Wave and Italian Neorealism, is a powerful exploration of the immigrant experience and the psychic violence of antiblackness.

+ Niaye

  • Director

    Ousmane Sembène

  • Senegal-France 1964. 35min

  • 35mm

  • English subtitles

Sembène adapts one of his own stories for this tale of the hypocrisy of a village faced with the pregnancy of a young girl abused by her father. Set to the hypnotic folk music of Fatou Casset and Keba Faye, the film presents a scathing critique of patriarchy, inaugurating a feminist ethos that spans all the filmmaker’s work.

The screening on Tuesday 1 August features a pre-recorded intro by season programmer Chrystel Oloukoï.

Contains themes of suicide.