Sugar Cane Alley

Euzhan Palcy's 1983 film, adapted from Joseph Zobel's novel, is set in Martinique in the 1930s. José grows up in a village working the sugar cane fields and lives with his grandmother M'man Tine, whose only aim is that her grandson escape this work and study. The film's strength is showing the colonial order as a daily calculation rather than a thesis: fines, debt and a school scholarship granted only in part. Darling Légitimus won best actress at the Césars for the grandmother. Palcy won the Silver Lion at Venice with this film and was the first Black woman director to do so. The pace is slow. Who it's for: viewers interested in Caribbean cinema and films about colonialism. Who it's not for: anyone wanting pace, or troubled by scenes of child labour and poverty.