Considered Africa’s first dramatic feature film, Black Girl won Sembène the 1966 Jean Vigo Prize at Cannes. It addresses lingering racism in postcolonial Africa in a visual style reminiscent of the French New Wave. Based on Sembène’s novel Voltäique, the film tells of the exile and despair of a Senegalese domestic servant, Diouana (Mbissine Thérèse Diop), who is taken to the French Riviera by her French employers. “Brimming with tragic wisdom and latent meaning, with finality and promise, with humor and pain . . . It is at this point that African cinema begins” (Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader).

Restored in 2015 by The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project in collaboration with the Sembène Estate, Institut National de l’Audiovisuel, INA, Eclair laboratories and Centre National de Cinématographie. Restoration carried out at Cineteca di Bologna/ L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory.