Euzhan Palcy

Born January 13 1958 in Martinique French West Indies Euzhan Palcy is a leader for black people especially black women in cinema She is a screenwriter producer and director After studying the likes of Billy Wilder and Orson Welles and receiving a few degrees including one from Louis Lumière College she directed her first feature Sugar Cane Alley 1983 in Paris for less than a million dollars The film is about an impoverished black family making sacrifices for a young boy on a plantation in Martinique during the 1930s It won numerous awards internationally among them the César Award and the Venice Film Festival Silver Lion Palcys second feature A Dry White Season 1989 explored the politics of South African apartheid beckoning actor Marlon Brando to end his nineyear retirement to portray lawyer Ian McKenzie in it With A Dry White Season Palcy became the first black woman director produced by a major Hollywood studio The film was banned in South Africa for a period of time Brandos direction by Palcy earned him his final Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor This made Palcy the first director who is black to direct an actor to such an honor Palcy has continued to produce and make films all the way into the 2010s