At this year’s Governors Awards, director Euzhan Palcy made a memorable comeback by receiving an Oscar for lifetime achievement. Euzhan made history as the first Black woman to helm a movie for a major Hollywood studio after being hailed by Ava DuVernay and presented by Viola Davis.
‘Sugar Cane Alley,’ a movie about field labourers in colonial Martinique, was Euzhan’s breakout work. In 1983, she became the first Black woman and director to win a Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival. She was also the first to win a César, France’s equivalent of the Academy Award.
Her second major motion picture, ‘A Dry White Season,’ was a dramatisation of South Africa’s apartheid period that portrayed the radicalization of a suburban white father when he began to fight for justice for his Black gardener and his son.
Nelson Mandela requested a meeting with her after his release from jail since it was the first Black woman’s picture to be funded by a major Hollywood company.
Accepting the award, she said, ‘Black and female is bankable. I was so tired of being told I was a pioneer. I was so tired of hearing praise for being the first of too many firsts.’
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences used the 13th annual Governors awards ceremony last weekend to recognise someone who had made significant contributions to the entertainment business.
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