Euzhan Palcy (; born January 13, 1958) is a Martinican-born film director, screenwriter, and producer. Her films are known to explore themes of race, gender, and politics, with an emphasis on the perpetuated effects of colonialism. Palcy's first feature film Sugar Cane Alley (1983) received numerous awards including the César Award for Best First Feature Film. For directing A Dry White Season (1989), she became the first black female director to have a film produced by a major Hollywood studio, that being by MGM. Palcy also directed the independent film Siméon (1992). She has since moved towards directing documentaries and television projects such as Aimé Césaire: A Voice for History (1994). She then directed the television films Ruby Bridges (1998) and The Killing Yard (2001), as well as the documentary The Journey of the Dissidents (2005) and the miniseries The Brides of Bourbon Island (2007). Throughout her career, Palcy has explored various genres, often breaking ground being the first female black director to do so. She is the first black director to win a César Award and the Venice Film Festival's Silver Lion, both for Sugar Cane Alley (1983). In 2022, she was given the Academy Honorary Award for her contributions to cinema. Early life and education Euzhan Palcy was born in Martinique in the French West Indies. Palcy grew up studying the films of Fritz Lang, Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder and Orson Welles. She decided at the young age of ten to become a filmmaker, largely due to the imprecise depictions of black people in film and television, and her desire for a more accurate portrayal. Euzhan went to college at home in Martinique, and eventually found work at a local TV network. When she was a teenager, her success as a poet and songwriter led to her being asked to do a weekly poetry program on local television. It was there she wrote and directed the short film La Messagère, and began her filmmaking career. The drama, which centers on the relationship between a girl and her grandmother, and which explores the lives of workers on a banana plantation, was the first West Indian production mounted in Martinique. She left for Paris in 1975 to earn a master's degree in French literature, in theater, at the Sorbonne, a D.E.A. in Art and Archeology and a film degree (specializing in cinematography) from renowned Louis Lumière College. Palcy soon began