Euzhan Palcy facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Euzhan Palcy
Palcy at the 2023 Berlin International Film Festival
Born	(1958-01-13) 13 January 1958 (age 67) Martinique
Alma mater	University of Paris École nationale supérieure Louis-Lumière
Occupation	Filmmaker
Years active	1975–present
Notable work	Sugar Cane Alley ( La Rue Cases-Nègres) A Dry White Season

Euzhan Palcy (born 13 January 1958) is a talented filmmaker from Martinique. She is a director, screenwriter, and producer. Her movies often explore important topics like race, gender, and politics. She especially focuses on how colonialism (when one country takes control of another) has affected people over time.

Euzhan Palcy made history with her first big movie, Sugar Cane Alley (1983). It won many awards, including the César Award for Best First Feature Film. This is like the French version of an Oscar! Later, with her film A Dry White Season (1989), she became the first black female director to have a movie made by a major Hollywood studio, MGM.

She also directed the independent film Siméon (1992). Since then, she has made many documentaries and TV shows. These include Aimé Césaire: A Voice for History (1994) and the TV films Ruby Bridges (1998) and The Killing Yard (2001). In 2022, she received an Academy Honorary Award for her amazing work in cinema.

Early Life and Education

Euzhan Palcy was born in Martinique, which is an island that is part of France. From a young age, she loved watching movies by famous directors like Alfred Hitchcock. When she was only 10, she decided she wanted to become a filmmaker. She felt that black people were not shown accurately in movies and TV. She wanted to use her camera to tell their true stories and help heal old wounds from history.

Palcy went to college in Martinique and later worked at a local TV station. As a teenager, she was a successful poet and songwriter. This led to her hosting a weekly poetry show on TV. There, she wrote and directed her first short film, La Messagère. This movie was about a girl and her grandmother, and it showed the lives of workers on a banana plantation. It was the first film made in the West Indies (Caribbean islands).

In 1975, Palcy moved to Paris, France. She studied French literature and film at important universities like the Sorbonne. Soon after, she started working on her first feature film, Sugar Cane Alley. This movie was based on a book about the struggles of poor people in Martinique. Famous French filmmaker François Truffaut encouraged her, and the French government even helped fund the film.

Amazing Film Career

First Big Success: Sugar Cane Alley

In Paris, with the help of her "French Godfather" François Truffaut, Euzhan Palcy made her first feature film, Sugar Cane Alley (1983). This movie cost less than $1,000,000 to make. It tells the story of life on a sugar cane plantation in Martinique in the 1930s, seen through the eyes of a young boy.

Sugar Cane Alley won more than 17 international awards. These included the Venice Film Festival Silver Lion and the Coppa Volpi for Best Lead Actress. It also won the important César Award for best first feature film. After seeing her work, Robert Redford, a famous American actor and director, invited her to a special workshop for directors. He became her "American Godfather."

Making History with A Dry White Season

In 1989, Palcy wrote and directed A Dry White Season. This American drama film starred famous actors like Donald Sutherland, Marlon Brando, and Susan Sarandon. The movie was based on a book about apartheid in South Africa. Apartheid was a cruel system where people were separated and treated unfairly based on their race. The film is set in South Africa in 1976.

Euzhan Palcy was the only woman filmmaker to direct Marlon Brando. He had not acted in nine years, but he was so impressed by Palcy's dedication to social change that he acted in A Dry White Season for free. Palcy was also the first black director to guide an actor to an Oscar nomination.

To make the story accurate, Palcy bravely traveled to South Africa in secret. She wanted to research the Soweto riots, which were protests against apartheid. She met people from the Soweto township and avoided the secret police by pretending to be a recording artist.

Palcy became the first black female director whose film was produced by a major Hollywood studio. She was also the only black filmmaker to make a movie against apartheid in the U.S. while Nelson Mandela was in prison. Senator Ted Kennedy supported the film, calling it a "powerful story of the violence, injustice and inhumanity of that system." Marlon Brando was nominated for an Academy Award for his role. For her amazing work, Palcy received the "Orson Welles Award."

Later Projects

After her serious films, Palcy showed the lively spirit of her home, Martinique, with Simeon (1992). This was a musical comedy fairytale set in the Caribbean and Paris. She then made a three-part documentary called Aimé Césaire, A Voice For History (1994). It was about a famous Martinican poet and philosopher whom she called her "first godfather."

Palcy also worked for Disney/ABC Studios. She directed and produced an episode of The Wonderful World of Disney called Ruby Bridges (1998). This film told the true story of Ruby Bridges, a young girl who was the first to integrate public schools in New Orleans. President Bill Clinton and Disney President Michael Eisner introduced the film from the White House. The film won four awards.

For Paramount/Showtime Studios, Palcy directed The Killing Yard (2001). This drama was based on the true events of the 1971 Attica prison riot. The film won an award for being the "Best Film About Justice."

In 2005, Palcy returned to documentaries with Parcours de Dissidents ("The Journey of the Dissidents"). This film told the forgotten story of people from Martinique and Guadeloupe who left their islands during WWII to fight for the liberation of France. In 2007, she wrote and directed Les Mariées de I’isles Bourbon ("The Brides of Bourbon Island"). This was a romantic historical adventure about three women who traveled from France to marry French people on the island of Réunion.

Euzhan Palcy's passion for life and people inspires all her projects. She is interested in many types of films, including animation, thrillers, comedies, and action movies. She is developing an animated film called Katoumbaza and a film about Bessie Coleman, the first African-American woman aviator. She also plans to direct Teaching Toots, a comedy-drama about illiteracy. Her latest production is Moly, a short film about a young disabled filmmaker from Senegal.

In 2022, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gave Palcy an Honorary Oscar. They recognized her as "a pioneering filmmaker whose groundbreaking significance in international cinema is cemented in film history." In her acceptance speech, Palcy thanked the Academy for helping to open doors in the film industry. She said it encouraged her to keep making movies her own way, without her voice being silenced.

Film Style and Themes

Euzhan Palcy's films are set in different places, but they always focus on Black culture. Her movies highlight themes and issues that are important to black communities, whether they are in Martinique, France, South Africa, or America.

Themes of colonialism are often seen in her films, like Sugarcane Alley and A Dry White Season. These movies show how black communities have suffered from oppression. Palcy's films explore how people have struggled for change and how race relations have shifted over time.

Palcy often uses actors who are not professionals in her films. She works with them to make sure the movies feel real and true to life. For Sugarcane Alley, many actors were actual workers from the sugar cane plantation. Palcy even had them live on the film set for two months before filming began. This helped them truly feel like the characters they were playing.

For A Dry White Season, Palcy wanted people from South Africa who had lived through apartheid to act in the scenes. It was difficult to get them into Zimbabwe, where the film was shot, because South Africans were not allowed to travel easily. Palcy went to great lengths, flying the actors to London first on "artist" visas, and then to Zimbabwe. This showed her dedication to making the film as authentic as possible.

Filmography

Movies

Television Projects

Awards and Special Recognition

Euzhan Palcy has received many awards and honors throughout her career:

• 1983: Venice Film Festival, Silver Lion for La Rue Cases-Nègres
• 1984: César Awards, Best First Work for La Rue Cases-Nègres
• 1990: National Coalition of 100 Black Women, Candace Award for Trailblazing
• 2001: Cannes Film Festival, Sojourner Truth Award
• 2002: Silver Gavel Award by the American Bar Association for The Killing Yard
• 2013: Cannes Classics official selection for Simeon
• 2022: Academy Honorary Award (an Oscar!)

She was the first woman and first black director to win a French Oscar (César Award) in 1984. In 1997, a movie theater in France was named "Cinema Euzhan Palcy" in her honor. In 2000, Martinique's first high school dedicated to film study was named after her. She has also been made an honorary citizen of several U.S. cities. In 2018, she was added to the Black Achiever's Wall at the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool, UK.

See also

In Spanish: Euzhan Palcy para niños