UNSUNG BLACK FEMALE FILMMAKER MADE INROADS WITH ‘SUGAR CANE ALLEY’
“I consider myself a filmmaker on a mission, you know.”
Euzhan Palcy says this over the phone from a very noisy place in LA. There is a lot of truth to her declaration. The French West Indies-born filmmaker is currently in the U.S., on a mission to show Stateside folk the film that made her a filmmaker on the rise back in the early ’80s.
Titled “Sugar Cane Alley,” this 1983 period piece about life on a Martinique sugar-cane plantation, seen through the eyes of an 11year-old boy, went on to win the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival and the Cesar (aka the French Academy Award) for best first film, both a first for a black filmmaker.
But don’t go looking for it on any streaming platform; it has been in limbo ever since the U.S. distributor, the now-defunct New Yorker Films, let the rights expire.
“Those people, they didn’t do a good job,” says Palcy, 61. “I mean, it was terrible because they lost control of the company. They owed (European distributors JMJ International Pictures) $5,000 and they never paid. So the company who has the rights, they were very, very upset with them. They wanted to sue them.”
Nevertheless, Palcy says plans are underway for “Alley” and her other films to get properly distributed in the U.S. If you can’t wait to check out “Alley,” then you can see it as the centerpiece screening at the Houston Cinema Arts Festival on Saturday.
HCAF artistic director Jessica Green caught a screening of the film. She told Palcy she was mesmerized by it. “She was very moved to tears by the film and, so, she felt like she had to bring the film to the Houston audience,” says Palcy. “That’s why she insisted that I change my schedule, I do whatever I could, to come and be part of the festival.”
For someone who went on to be the first female filmmaker of color to helm a major-studio motion picture (the 1988 apartheid thriller “A Dry White Season,” a movie that earned Marlon Brando an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor), you’d think Palcy would be more revered in the industry.
Despite feeling she was put on this planet to make movies, the powers that be have often made it difficult for her to do her thing. “It’s very hard sometimes because, you know,” she says. “We need for them to let us do what we want to do — make the movies out there — and market them well, like they would market any other movie.”
She’s definitely a major influence among the female, AfricanAmerican
filmmakers working today. Last September in LA, “A Wrinkle in Time” director Ava DuVernay screened “Alley,” with Palcy in attendance, at a film series curated by DuVernay and her ARRAY film collective. At a 2017 question-and-answer session, “Mudbound” director Dee Rees freaked out when, just minutes after discussing how much “Alley” inspired her, Palcy popped up from the audience to ask a question.
These days, she’s continuing to fight the good fight, inspiring other young, gifted and black artists to make movies the same way
French New Wave auteur and mentor Jean-Luc Godard inspired her in her younger years. And considering how we have such folks as DuVernay, Ryan Coogler and Jordan Peele making movies that also kill at the box office, Palcy is hoping maybe Hollywood will finally let more filmmakers of color behind the wheel.
“We have everything that it takes,” says Palcy. “We have great screenwriters. We have great technicians. And when all those elements come together — of course, we have a story that is very successful, a story that makes a lot of money. And people say, ‘Oh my God! Wow!’
“Some years ago,” she says, “when this kind of thing would happen, sometimes the studio or some money people would go, ‘Oh well, maybe it’s an accident.’ But, today, you know, it’s happening more. You can name at least 10 movies these past years that made a lot of money — and the audience is asking for more.”