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).
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).
[5][6] She decided at the age of 10 to become a filmmaker, largely due to being upset by the imprecise depictions of black people in film and television that she saw, and her desire for more accurate portrayals.
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.
"[10] As she became acquainted with members of the French film community, Palcy received encouragement from New Wave filmmaker François Truffaut and his collaborator Suzanne Shiffman.
In Palcy's film adaptation of A Dry White Season, the story focuses on the social movements of South Africa and the Soweto riots, and was heralded for putting the politics of apartheid into meaningful human terms.
To research the riots, she was introduced to the people of Soweto township by Dr Motlana (Nelson Mandela's and Desmond Tutu's personal physician), while she eluded the South African secret services by posing as a recording artist.
[8][18] The late Senator Ted Kennedy supported the filmmaker, scheduling a special viewing of A Dry White Season in Washington, D.C. and recommending the film as a "powerful story of the violence, injustice and inhumanity of that {apartheid} system.
[3] By 1992, Palcy veered away from the serious subject matter of her previous films to show the spirit and liveliness of her native Martinique with Simeon (1992),[20] a musical comedic fairytale set in the Caribbean and Paris, featuring Kassav.
The film tells the story of the forgotten history of “dissidents”, the men and women of Martinique and Guadeloupe who left their islands between 1940 and 1943, many of who were trained at Fort Dix, New Jersey, during WWII and fought throughout the liberation of France.
[24] In 2007, Palcy wrote and directed Les Mariées de I’isles Bourbon ("The Brides of Bourbon Island") (2007), a romantic historical epic adventure, which tells of a romantic, historic epic action adventure where three women survive a harrowing ocean voyage from France to forcibly marry French expatriates on the island of Réunion.
She is actively developing a feature film, on Bessie Coleman,[25] for which she recorded the very last witness of the first African-American woman aviator journey in France,[16] and an action comedy set in Los Angeles and Paris.
[27][28] In 2022, the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voted to present Palcy, alongside Diane Warren and Peter Weir, with an Honorary Oscar, citing her as "a pioneering filmmaker whose groundbreaking significance in international cinema is cemented in film history".
[29][25] In her Oscar's acceptance speech, Palcy congratulated the Academy “for helping to lead the charge to change our industry and for opening the doors that were closed to the ideas and visions that I championed for so long.” She said: “It encourages me to raise my voice again, to offer you movies of all genres that I always wanted to make in my own way, without having my voice censored or silenced.”[30] The geographical setting varies from project to project, yet Palcy's focus on Black culture remains constant.
"Euzhan Palcy's two films Rue cases nègres / Sugar Cane Alley (1983) and A Dry White Season (1989) share a set of thematic equivalences that represent postcolonial perspectives on Pan-African identities and experiences.
They were there having fun barbecuing, playing.”[33] In A Dry White Season, Palcy wanted to get people from South Africa who were actually living in apartheid to act in these scenes.