Maïmouna Doucouré to Direct Josephine Baker Biopic

Maïmouna Doucouré is following up 2020’s “Cuties,” her Paris-set portrait of a pre-teen Senegalese immigrant who joins a dance clique, with the story of a trailblazing dancer, singer, actor, and civil rights activist. Selection studies that the French filmmaker will write and direct a Josephine Baker biopic being developed by StudioCanal.

An American-born French performer who was born in 1906 and died in 1975, Baker famously refused to carry out for segregated audiences in the US. “She labored as a undercover agent for the French Resistance throughout WWII, then supported Martin Luther King’s civil rights motion, talking at his aspect throughout his 1963 March on Washington,” the supply particulars. The “J’ai deux amours” singer made historical past as the primary Black lady to star in a function movie with 1927 silent movie “La Sirène des Tropiques.”

Doucouré’s movie has the approval of Baker’s sons, Jean-Claude Bouillon Baker and Brian Bouillon Baker, and “the Rainbow Tribe, which is what she dubbed her adopted kids,” the supply particulars.

“We’re honored to associate with StudioCanal and collaborate with Maïmouna on this function movie concerning the unimaginable and humanist achievements of our mom,” stated Baker’s sons and the Rainbow Tribe, who described their mom as a “common artist.” They added, “Sure she may. And she or he did. Thanks, Mum.”

Doucouré commented, “Josephine Baker is such an inspiration for me and so many individuals around the globe.” She described the challenge as a “big honor and a lovely problem,” including that she couldn’t “wait to breathe new life into this unimaginable legend on display screen.” She emphasised, “To suppose that by fiction I can inform her nice and profoundly wealthy story, her magnificence, her fights, her wounds, and her humanity.”

“Cuties” made its world premiere at Sundance Movie Competition, the place Doucouré took house the Directing Award within the World Cinema Dramatic class. The drama explores the sexualization of ladies and the social pressures they face.