Black Girl (60th Anniversary)

Director Ousmane Sembène is often referred to as the father of African cinema, and *Black Girl* is one of his seminal films. Through the story of Diouana, a young Senegalese woman who enters the service of a French couple, Sembène paints a precise and scathing portrait of exploitation masquerading as benevolence. His austere visual language and elliptical narrative structure transform everyday gestures into indictments, revealing how identity can be erased precisely within the most domestic of spaces. Sixty years on, the film’s moral force remains just as urgent, precisely because Sembène shows how colonial relations do not disappear with independence, but continue to operate through language, labour, property and the intimate relationships of daily life. To mark its 60th anniversary, Black Girl returns to cinemas in a new 4K restoration.