The Dryden will screen A Dry White Season (Euzhan Palcy, U.S. 1989, 107 min., 35mm) as part of the Black Female Filmmakers series.

Euzhan Palcy has been a trailblazer in many ways—among them, she was the first black director to win a César Award (the French equivalent of the Oscar) and the first black director to direct an actor to an Academy Award nomination. That nomination was for Marlon Brando in this film, after he agreed to come out of his self-imposed retirement and work for free. In 1970s South Africa, a teacher and his wife (Donald Sutherland and Susan Sarandon) find out the true cost of Apartheid when their gardener's son is detained and killed by the police following a peaceful demonstration about education reform. Taking the case to court, the teacher hopes to find justice for the boy, but when the entire system works against him, he takes matters into his own hands.

[source: George Eastman Museum calendar, 2019-Feb-11]