Martinique (France) / All works
Cinema
Sugar Cane Alley
Rue Cases-Nègres
Euzhan Palcy · 1983
Synopsis
In the early 1930s, a sugar cane plantation in Martinique: during the summer holidays the adults go off to work in the fields and leave the two rows of wooden shacks deserted. José, an eleven-year-old orphan, lives there with his grandmother, M'man Tine, who raises him with firmness and tenderness. She has known the hard life of the cane and wants, through school, to spare him its fate.
Context
The film adapts Black Shack Alley, a novel by Joseph Zobel published in 1950. At the 1983 Venice Film Festival it received the Silver Lion for best first work, and Darling Légitimus, who plays M'man Tine, the award for best actress. In 1984 it won the César for best first work; it has collected seventeen prizes in all. Garry Cadenat plays José, and Douta Seck old Médouze. The film was produced in France by three companies, among them Orca and la Nef, and Cannes Classics paid tribute to it in 2011.
Who it is for
For seeing what school meant for a family of cane workers, at a child's height.
Prizes and reception
Awarded prizes at Venice and then at the César on its release, and honoured since by a Cannes Classics tribute.
Sources for this page 3
The pages consulted to check this page.