Key Dates

2022: Honorary Oscar in 2022.
2011: Cannes Film Festival screens "Sugar Cane Alley".
1989: Oscar nomination for "A Dry White Season".
1984: César Award for Best First Work.
1983: Silver Lion for Best First Film at the Venice Film Festival.

Director

1975: "La Messagère" TV film
1982: "L'Atelier du diable" short film
1983: "Sugar Cane Alley"
1989: "A Dry White Season"
1990: "How Are the Kids?" feature documentary; segment "Hassane"
1992: "Siméon" Antillean musical fantasy
1994: "Aimé Césaire, A Voice for History" three-part documentary:

• "The Watchful Island"
• "At the Rendez-vous of Conquest"
• "The Strength to Look Tomorrow in the Eye"

1998: "The Ruby Bridges Story" TV film
2001: "The Killing Yard" 2005: "Parcours de dissidents" documentary
2007: "The Brides of Bourbon Island" two-part adventure TV film
2008: "The Fundamental Friend: Césaire/Senghor" unreleased documentary
2010: "Parcours de dissidents"

Sugar Cane Alley

Euzhan Palcy, who wanted to adapt "Sugar Cane Alley" by Martinican writer Joseph Zobel into a film, met François Truffaut, who took an interest in the project, supported her, provided technical advice, and facilitated her connections with producers.

In 1983, "Sugar Cane Alley" moved audiences with its depiction of life in Martinique in the old days and the impoverished existence of black families tied to the sugar cane plantations. The film was a public success and won seventeen international awards in France and the United States.

A Dry White Season

Euzhan Palcy then adapted "A Dry White Season" the novel by South African writer André Brink, which discusses his country torn apart by apartheid and racism. The film starred Marlon Brando, Zakes Mokae, Donald Sutherland and Susan Sarandon. The film, which denounces segregation while Nelson Mandela was still imprisoned in South African jails, was a public success.

For this film, she received the Orson Welles Prize for Special Cinematic Achievement in 1989.

Siméon

Her return to France materialized through the making of "Siméon" described by the director as "a fantastic and musical Antillean tale, between life and death, in which the ghost of a famous musician, poet, and seducer is held captive by a little girl, Orélie, and can only be freed by performing a good deed."

Aimé Césaire

Euzhan Palcy wanted to pay tribute to Aimé Césaire, whom she considered her spiritual father. In 1994, she dedicated a series of three documentary films to him with "Aimé Césaire, A Voice for History"

American Call

Revitalized, the filmmaker resumed her projects in the United States. In 1999, American television aired the film "Ruby Bridges" a historical epic she directed and co-produced about a five-year-old girl fighting to break down racial discrimination barriers in the 1960s.

Immediately after this film, she spent three years on what would have been the "first black animated film produced by an American studio" set in West Africa 2000 B.C. However, as she was finalizing the project, the producer (Fox) lost its animation studio and terminated the ongoing production.

In 2001, she directed "The Killing Yard" an unreleased drama about the Attica prison riot, which occurred 30 years earlier in New York State.

Since 2005

In 2005, through the documentary "Parcours de dissidents" the filmmaker sought to correct historical oversights by giving voice to Caribbean soldiers who fought alongside General de Gaulle during World War II.

In 2011, the Cannes Film Festival paid tribute to her and screened a restored version of "Sugar Cane Alley"

Awards

Sugar Cane Alley

• 1983 Venice Film Festival: Silver Lion for Best First Film, Best Actress Award, Prize of the Catholic Office, UNESCO Prize
• 1984 Fespaco: Audience Award
• 1984 César Award for Best First Work

A Dry White Season (MGM)

• 1989 Orson Welles Prize for Best Achievement
• 1989 Barclay Award for Best Film (Lausanne)
• Oscar nomination and Best Actor Award for Marlon Brando at the Tokyo International Film Festival

Siméon

• 1993 Silver Raven at the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival
• 1993 Best Youth Film Award (Italy)
• 1993 Fespaco: Prize of the Institute of Black Peoples
• 1993 Philadelphia Festival: Audience Award

The Killing Yard (Paramount)

• 2002 Silver Hammer Award for Best Film on Justice by the American Bar Association, Television Dramas category

The Ruby Bridges Story (Disney)

• 1998 Christopher Award for Best Film
• 1998 Humanitas Prize
• 1998 National Educational Media Network, USA Gold Apple
• 1998 Young Artist Award for Best Performance in a TV Movie or Series - Young Actress Age Ten or Under

Aimé Césaire: A Voice for History

• National Black Programming Consortium Award of Excellence

Honorary Oscar in 2022

Decorations

• Officer of the Legion of Honor (2018)
• Grand Companion of the Order of OR Tambo (South Africa) (2017)
• Officer of the National Order of Merit (2009)

Education

• Graduate of the Faculty of Letters in Paris (Literature and Theater)
• Student of the Louis-Lumière School

https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/710877776/ca683a3b08

https://vimeo.com/842296997

www.euzhanpalcy.net