Black Girl

Black Girl may refer to:

Black Girl (1972 film)

Black Girl is a 1972 American drama film directed by Ossie Davis based on the 1969 play by playwright J. E. Franklin. The film is about a Los Angeles teenage girl who defies the low expectations thrust upon her and pursues her dream of becoming a dancer.

Plot

17–year old aspiring dancer Billie Jean (Pettitt), her bitter and under achieving sisters Ruth Ann and Norma Faye (Greene, Edwards) resent their mother's (Stubbs) love for a foster daughter; 21–year old over achieving college student Netta (Uggams).

Cast

Reception

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times rated it three out of four stars and wrote, "Black Girl is a movie so filled with things it wants to say that sometimes the messages are lost in a confusion of story lines. A more disciplined movie might have been made by eliminating some of the material and organizing the rest, but I'm not sure it would have been a better movie, or a more moving experience."Roger Greenspun of The New York Times wrote, "I suspect that the real difference between the successful play and the failed movie lies in Ossie Davis's direction, which ranges from pedestrian to downright helpless."Variety quoted their own review, which called it "the best study of Negro family life since Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun".

Black Girl (1966 film)

Black Girl is a 1966 film by the Senegalese writer and director Ousmane Sembène, starring Mbissine Thérèse Diop. Its original French title is La Noire de..., which means "The black girl of...", as in "someone's black girl". The film centers on a young Senegalese woman who moves from Senegal to France to work for a rich French couple. It was the director's first feature-length film. It is often considered the first Sub-Saharan African film by an African filmmaker to receive international attention.

Plot

Diouana, a young Senegalese woman, moves from Dakar, Senegal to Antibes, France to work for a rich French couple. In France, Diouana hopes to continue her former nanny job and anticipates a cosmopolitan lifestyle. But from her arrival in Antibes, Diouana experiences harsh treatment from the couple, who force her to work as a full servant. She becomes increasingly aware of her constrained and alienated situation and starts to question her life in France.

Cast