Background
Born on January 13, 1958, in Martinique.
Born on January 13, 1958, in Martinique.
Euzhan Palcy grew up studying the films of Fritz Lang, Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder and Orson Welles. She left for Paris in 1975 to earn a master's degree in French Literature, in theater at the Sorbonne, a D.E.A. in Art and Archeology and a film degree (specializing in cinematography) from renowned Louis Lumière College.
On completing film school, she spent some time working as an assistant editor on films with young African filmmakers in France and revising a script she had begun to write when she was 17 for what would become her first feature film, Sugar Cane Alley (1983). Recognizing her talent, director François Truffaut, her French "godfather," and director Constantin Costas-Gavras provided support for this film, which was a hit at New York City's 1984 New Directors/New Films Festival. The film was hailed internationally and Palcy was described as "a new writer-director of exceptional abilities" (Canby 1984, 17). The response in Martinique was unprecedented. During the first week alone, almost half of the country's population of 400,000 saw the film. Based on the book of the same title by Joseph Zobel, it relates the struggle of blacks in the 1930s working on a white man's plantation in Martinique, and one child's successful journey out of the exploitative sugarcane fields. At age 22, Palcy was on her way to becoming a famous filmmaker. The film received over 17 international prizes, including the Silver Lion and Best Lead Actress Award at the Venice Film Festival, the César Award for Best First Feature Film, and the First Prize Critics Award at the Houston Film Festival.
Her 1989 A Dry White Season, considered her masterpiece, is an exposé on the struggle against apartheid in South Africa during the 1970s. It was heralded for putting the politics of apartheid into meaningful human terms. She convinced actor Marlon Brando to end a nine-year seclusion period to play the role of a well-known South African lawyer, for which he received a Best Actor Academy Award nomination. At the international level, Brando received the Best Actor award for this film at the Tokyo Film Festival, and Palcy received the Orson Welles Prize for Special Cinematic Achievement.
In 1992, Palcy again chose Martinique as the subject of her work, but this time it was in the form of a Caribbean musical fairy tale. Critically acclaimed, the film Simeon won awards at the Milan, and Montreal, and Brussels film festivals in 1993. Her 1994 portrait of the Martinique poet, playwright, and philosopher, Aimé Césaire, A Voice for History, which also garnered international critical acclaim, followed this success. Palcy's representation of Aimé Césaire has been critically lauded: "by means of an immense, live documentation, covering more than a half century of histories, inscribes the entire Antillean destiny through one of the most determining figures of human liberation of the twentieth century'.
Palcy has been the recipient of awards at home and abroad. In 1994 she was honored by French President Francois Miterrand with the Chevalier Dans L'Ordre National Du Merite (Knight in the National Order of Merit), and in 1997 the city of Amiens, France, named its movie theater after her. Perhaps the honor she holds closest to her heart came from her compatriot the first high school dedicated to film study in Martinique has been named after her. At the 2001 Cannes Film Festival she was awarded the Sojourner Truth Award by Agora, an organization that specializes in presenting African films at Cannes. More recently, in 2003, French president Jacques Chirac named her Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur.
President Bill Clinton introduced her 1998 television film The Ruby Bridges Story when it was aired on ABC Television. The Ruby Bridges Story is a movie that presents a chapter of the history of school desegregation through the stirring true-life story of Ruby Bridges, the little black girl who braved racist mobs to successfully integrate an all-white school in New Orleans.
Among her most recent work is The Killing Yard (2001), a drama based on the true events surrounding the 1971 Attica prison uprising in New York State. She is also working on a World War II love story set in Martinique and a thriller set in Paris and New York. She is currently co-writing and will be executive producer of an animated feature for Fox Studios.
(Directed by Euzhan Palcy.)
Palcy’s interest in humanitarian work and to support the younger generation has been known for years. Her last production has been Moly, the autobiographical short of disabled one-legged Senegalese young filmmaker Moly Kane. The film was screened in Cannes with rapturous public acclaim. Palcy announced on stage that Moly Kane will receive the prosthetic leg of his dreams so that he could be free to film with his camera.
Palcy’s drive for the life and compassion for humanity inspire each and every project with which she is involved. Her passion spills into all areas of cinematic lexicon to include the animation, thriller, comedy and action genres. For Fox Studios, Palcy developed an animated feature, currently entitled “Katoumbaza”. She is actively developing a feature film, on “Bessie Coleman,” for which she recorded the very last witness of the first African American woman aviator journey in France and, an action comedy set in Los Angeles and Paris. Palcy has chosen “Teaching Toots,” a comedy drama on illiteracy, a project close to her heart, to be her next film to co-produce and direct.
Quotes from others about the person
Leon Palcy, who Euzhan describes as the "first feminist" she ever knew, was adamant about education and managed to send all six of his children to France to finish their schooling".