French Wedding Caribbean Style

In Afro-French auteur Julius-Amédée Laou’s second feature film, we’re made witness to an interracial wedding held in the summertime, shot on self-reflexive MiniDV by the bride’s younger brother. Anazinga, the daughter of a migrant Caribbean family, has just married the son of a white French family. When Anazinga's ex-boyfriend arrives bearing an unexpected wedding gift, a scandal emerges that threatens to tear the happy couple’s union apart, exposing racial tension, cultural confusion, and messy fissures beneath the ensemble’s happy facade. Social propriety is ripped away; what emerges after is a no-holds-barred depiction of white racism and an acidic comedy of manners (and prejudices).  (Julius-Amédée Laou, France, 2004, 89 min., DCP)   

Screening with: 

Mist Melodies of Paris 

Richard, a West Indian man in his forties living in Paris, is haunted by traumatic memories and the shame of having fought on behalf of France in Algeria. In this dissection of the intersections of colonial trauma and colonial guilt, Laou addresses France's culture of racism, the youth of the 1980s, and the devastating effects of colonialism on society. (Julius-Amédée Laou, France, 1985, 23 min., DCP) 

Rachel Chery is a sixth-year music history doctoral candidate at the University of Chicago. Her dissertation examines the history of transnational connections created by Haitian radio throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Her areas of interest include the relationship between music and nationalism in Haiti, media studies, diaspora, migration, and soccer fandom. 

Presented with support from the Caribbean Studies Incubator and Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture