By the father of African cinema, Ousmane Sembène, Black Girl (1966) is a study of the enduring structures of racial and gender exploitation after decolonisation. Diouana (Mbissine Thérèse Diop), an au pair accompanying her white employers from Dakar to France, finds she is expected to be all but a domestic slave in name. Her defiance is met with the hypocritical concern of a 1960’s West barely past their recent history of open colonial oppression; her act of finally reclaiming power over her own body and identity is drastic, but takes immense courage.