“Neneh superstar” and “A little brother”: two films that change the representation of black people in cinema

In 2020, Spike Lee becomes the first black president of the Cannes Film Festival. But the collective 50/50 comes out “Inequalities”, a study that highlights the low share of non-whites on French screens. And, at the Césars, Aïssa Maïga, on the initiative of the book “Black is not my profession”, goes there with a disturbing speech: “We survived the blackfaces […], to the roles of terrorists […], hypersexualized girls. […] Think inclusion. » Three years later, things are moving too slowly.

Admittedly, Alice Diop (“Saint Omer”) represented France in the race for the Oscars with Kayije Kagame and Guslagie Malanda, two black actresses. Admittedly, Maïmouna Doucouré, through “Hawa” (Prime Video), the scooter odyssey of an albino girl who wishes to be adopted by Michelle Obama, trivializes these actors “counted on the fingers of one hand”. “Nevertheless, it drives me crazy to see my colleagues specify black – a term so 1980s – or Caucasian – American neologism – in their classifieds”, plague Elsa Pharaon, casting director. For “Tirailleurs”, by Mathieu Vadepied, which precipitates Omar Sy into the quagmire of 1914, she looked for Fulani speaking actors. She found 800. “That is to say their invisibility. Even if more and more filmmakers from diverse backgrounds are shaking things up. »

These weeks, two films widen the field of vision: “A little brother”, by Léonor Serraille, romantic saga of an Ivorian mother and her daughters.