Past Film/Video | Visiting Filmmakers | Classics

Sugar Cane Alley

(Euzhan Palcy, 1983) 

Euzhan Palcy in person 
Presented by the Wexner Center for the Arts and The Ohio State University Office of Academic Affairs

An old woman sewing and a child laying down are in a small room.

Palcy’s first feature as a director is a searing critique of colonialism in her home country of Martinique.

Set in Martinique in the early 1930s, Sugar Cane Alley follows the lives of young Jose (Garry Cadenat) and his grandmother M’Man Tine (Darling Légitimus) as they eke out a daily living by toiling in the harsh conditions of a French-owned sugar cane plantation. Despite their lives of hardship, M’Man and Jose dedicate themselves to his education in hopes it will lead to a happier future for the two of them. Winner of the César Award (the French equivalent of the Oscars) for Best First Feature Film. Based upon Joseph Zobel’s semi-autobiographical novel. A Q&A with Palcy moderated by Katherine Borland, Ohio State professor in the Department of Comparative Studies, follows the screening. In French and Martinican Creole with English subtitles. (103 mins., DCP)

See the entire Euzhan Palcy lineup.

IMAGE CAPTION
Sugar Cane Alley, courtesy of the filmmaker.

"With my camera I don’t shoot, I heal. I try to repair the wounds of history. One film at a time."
Euzhan Palcy

More about the filmmaker

Euzhan Palcy

Euzhan Palcy is a Martinican filmmaker, screenwriter, and producer. Her groundbreaking career is comprised of many firsts. She is the first female and first Black director to receive a César Award (the French equivalent of an Academy Award) and a Silver Lion (for Best Director) at the Venice Film Festival, both in recognition of her 1983 film Sugar Cane Alley. She is the first Black woman to have a feature film produced by a Hollywood studio (A Dry White Season, 1989). In 1994 she received a John Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Arts, and in 2022 she received an Honorary Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In her prolific career in film and television, documentary and narrative, Palcy has continually depicted and examined issues of race and gender and interrogated the history and legacy of colonialism.

Program Support

ADDITIONAL VISITING FILMMAKER SUPPORT PROVIDED BY 

Katherine Borland 

The Ohio State University French Center of Excellence

The Ohio State University Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

FILM/VIDEO PROGRAMS MADE POSSIBLE BY

Rohauer Collection Foundation

WEXNER CENTER PROGRAMS MADE POSSIBLE BY

Greater Columbus Arts Council

The Wexner Family

Ohio Arts Council, with support from the National Endowment for the Arts

CampusParc

The Columbus Foundation

Every Page Foundation

Mellon Foundation

Axium Packaging

Nationwide Foundation

ADDITIONAL SUPPORT PROVIDED BY

Joyce Shenk

Rebecca Perry and Ben Towle

Lachelle Thigpen

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Past Film/Video

Sugar Cane Alley