Thursday, March 28, 2024

Solidarity: Black Actresses At Cannes Protest Racism In French Film Industry (Watch)

[videowaywire video_id=”2E4DCD5FDD8DBC41″]

71st Cannes Film Festival - Screening of the film "Burning" (Beoning) in competition - Red Carpet Arrivals - Cannes, France May 16, 2018. French actresses Nadege Beausson-Diagne, Mata Gabin, Maimouna Gueye, Eye Haidara, Rachel Khan, Aissa Maiga, Sara Martins, Marie-Philomene Nga, Sabine Pakora, Firmine Richard, Sonia Rolland, Magaajyia Silberfeld, Shirley Souagnon, Assa Sylla, Karidja Toure, who collaborated for the publication of the book "Noire n’est pas mon metier" (Black is not my job) pose. REUTERS/Eric Gaillard
71st Cannes Film Festival – Screening of the film “Burning” (Beoning) in competition – Red Carpet Arrivals – Cannes, France May 16, 2018. French actresses Nadege Beausson-Diagne, Mata Gabin, Maimouna Gueye, Eye Haidara, Rachel Khan, Aissa Maiga, Sara Martins, Marie-Philomene Nga, Sabine Pakora, Firmine Richard, Sonia Rolland, Magaajyia Silberfeld, Shirley Souagnon, Assa Sylla, Karidja Toure, who collaborated for the publication of the book “Noire n’est pas mon metier” (Black is not my job) pose. REUTERS/Eric Gaillard

*Black women at the Cannes film festival banned together to stage a raised-fist protest against racism in French cinema.

On Wednesday, 16 French black and biracial actresses stood together on the red carpet to bring attention to the lack of black actors in French films, according to Agence France-Presse.

Led by French actress Aïssa Maïga of the 2006 critically acclaimed film in France “Bamako,” the women linked arms as they marched under the rain toward the red carpet. Once on the steps before the media, they stood together and raised their fists in the air.

The actresses recently published a book titled Noire N’est Pas Mon Métier, or Black Is Not My Job, in which they share anecdotes of the racism they’ve faced in their movie careers.

Actress Nadège Beausson-Diagne ― who starred in 2008 in France’s biggest-ever box office hit “Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis” (“Welcome to the Sticks”) ― recounts in the book how a director once asked her if she spoke “African.” She was also once told at a casting call: “For a black, you are really very intelligent. You should have been white,” reported Variety.

Another actress involved in the book and protest, Rachel Khan, wrote a HuffPost blog in March, describing how casting directors often offer her roles of stereotypical characters, like house cleaners or prostitutes.

“We can’t be silent anymore,” Khan wrote. “Our own children already ask us ‘why?’ when they look at our screens.”

Via Huffington Post:

Recent statistics have highlighted the stark lack of representation, and recognition, of black people in French cinema. The first black person to win best actor in France’s César awards (an Oscars-like annual ceremony started in 1976) was Omar Sy in 2012 for the hit film “Les Intouchables.”

A 2016 analysis from France Info looked at the previous decade of César awards ― specifically the top eight award categories from 2005 to 2015 ― and found that only two black people had ever won: actor Omar Sy in 2012 and filmmaker Abderrahmane Sissako in 2015 (for the hit film “Timbuktu”). There were only eight black nominees out of 479 over that decade.

After the Cannes protest this week, Maïga told reporters that quotas “could become one of the possible options” to fight against the “invisibility” of people of color on screen ― though, she noted, people will be resistant to the idea.

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