Who is Euzhan Palcy, Martinican director who receives an honorary Oscar for Lifetime Achievement?

Male viewers have an unfortunate tendency to cite only male directors and hold many positions as critics in this area, helping to obscure the invaluable contribution of female filmmakers. In the pantheon of the seventh art of all genres, however, there is Euzhan Palcy, a director much less known in her country than abroad.

This Martinican director, born in 1958, just received an honorary Oscar for her entire career on November 19, 2022 in Hollywood.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced it on June 21st. But do you know the great French director Euzhan Palcy?

Who is French director Euzhan Palcy, winner of an honorary Oscar?

In 1983, Euzhan Palcy was only 25 when he burst onto the screen with his first production: Rue Cases-Negres. This is the adaptation of Joseph Zobel’s autobiographical novel of the same name, published in 1950. It is the story of a Martinican child in the 1930s who discovers school while his grandmother works on sugar cane plantations.

This social film, poetic as well as political, receives 17 international awardsincluding the Silver Lion for best first film and best actress at the Venice Film Festival, as well as the César for best first film.

So much so that Hollywood opens its arms to him and Euzhan Palcy realizes it A white and dry season, notably with Marlon Brando and Susan Sarandon. It is the adaptation of a novel by the South African writer André Brink which tells how apartheid is tearing his country apart.

True to his anti-racist commitments and the revaluation of blacks, Euzhan Palcy then produced Simeonin the form of a fantastic and musical Caribbean talewhose Guadeloupe group Kassav’ (whose importance is much more recognized abroad than in France…) composes the music.

Euzhan Palcy also creates a trilogy of documentaries about and with Aimé Césaire In 1994 (The Island of the Night Light; At the rendezvous of conquest; The Force to watch tomorrow). He has been following it for months, to best celebrate this great Martinican figure in the literary and political movement of Negritude. A new masterclass on the sociological concept of stigma reversal.

Euzhan Palcy, a committed Martinican director, internationally recognized

If he has achieved nothing for the small or big screen since 2010, Euzhan Palcy continues to inspire. You have just received the Medal of Honor from the Society of Dramatic Authors and Composers on June 13 in Paris. And now, he’s an honorary Oscar for his entire career that will be awarded to him!

Primary photo credit: Courtesy Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.