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VENUS NOIRE
France, 2010, Not rated, 159 min
Directed by Abdellatif Kechichel. With Yahima Torres, André Jacobs and Olivier Gourmet.
 Friday, February 2 @ Alliance française Miami - 6:45 pm
Alliance française members free - Non member $5
The story of Saartjes Baartman, a Black domestic who, in 1808, left Southern Africa, then ruled by Dutch settlers, for Europe, following her boss Hendrick Caesar , hoping to find fame and fortune there. Once in London her master turned manager does nothing but exhibit her as a freak in a phony and humiliating carnival show. After a series of troubles caused by their act, Caesar, Saartje and their new friend, bear-tamer Réaux, head for Paris where once again, and against her will, she has to mimic savagery and expose her body, first in carnivals, then in the aristocratic salons of Paris, later on among the libertines and finally in brothels where she ends up being a prostitute. In the meantime, French anatomists will have taken an interest in her unusual anatomy (enormous buttocks and labia) only to declare her the missing link from ape to man. In 1815, aged only 27, she dies alone, of a combination of pneumonia and venereal disease.
Nominated in 2011 for the French César, the golden lion of the Venice festival and the Black Reel award.
“It’s precisely Baartman’s gaze—returned at those who are profiting from her and those who have paid to leer at and fondle her—that is the film’s most damning indictment of their depraved behavior. “Anyone can find their own message in Black Venus,” Torres says. “The film will make us question ourselves and show that man can go to extremes, can do very bad things.” Nathan Lee, the Village Voice
Special thanks to the Cultural Services of the French Embassy, Miami Dade College and Institut français
Complete serie program “Films Historiques”
 Third Friday of the month - 6:45 pm @ MDC Tower Theater, Miami
First Friday of the month - 6:45 pm @ Alliance française Miami
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