Palcy explains the difficulty: “We couldn’t let any journalists get in because of all the South African actors we had, we had to make them go to England, take them from England, bring them back to Zimbabwe, because the Black South Africans didn’t have the right to have a passport, so in order to get a passport you had to be an artist… They said they had a deal to be in a play, so that was how they got their passports.” Filmography Film Television Awards and nominations 1983: Venice Film Festival, Silver Lion, Best First Work for Rue cases nègres 1983: Venice Film Festival, UNICEF Award for Rue cases nègres 1983: Venice Film Festival, OCIC Award for Rue cases nègres 1983: Venice Film Festival, Golden Lion (nominee) for Rue cases nègres 1984: César Awards, César, Best First Work (Meilleure première oeuvre) for Rue cases nègres 1989: Tokyo International Film Festival, Tokyo Grand Prix (nominee) for A Dry White Season 1990: National Coalition of 100 Black Women, Candace Award for Trailblazing 2001: Cannes Film Festival, Sojourner Truth Award 2002: Silver Gavel Award by the American Bar Association for The Killing Yard 2013: Cannes Classics official selection for Simeon Legacy and recognition 1984: First woman and first black director winner of a French Oscar 1989: Glamour Magazine, 10 Most Inspiring Women 1994: John Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Arts 1995: Chevalier de l'Ordre national du Mérite 1997: Cinema Euzhan Palcy in Amiens, France, movie theater named in her honor 2000: Martinique's first high school dedicated to film study was after her and she was presented with the Sojourner Truth Award at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival 2004: National Order of the Legion of Honour Palcy is a Citizen of Honour of New York, Atlanta, New Orleans, and Sarasota, Fl. March 25, 2007, the National Maritime Museum in London launched her first retrospective with the screening of Sugar Cane Alley. Later that year the British Film Institute / BBC online poll on "The 100 Black Screen Icons" of the last 100 years ranked it number 3. October 2009, she received the Unita Blackwell Award in Las Vegas for the 35th anniversary of the National Conference of Black Mayors. December 2009, Sugar Cane Alley, was selected for the third time by the French National Educational Organization (the organization that chooses the films from all over the world to be studied in French schools), breaking