‘Cuties’ Director Maïmouna Doucouré To Write & Direct Josephine Baker Biopic For Studiocanal
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Studiocanal has announced it is in development on a biopic feature film devoted to the life of iconic U.S.-born, French artist Josephine Baker.
Maïmouna Doucouré, who is best known for the French-language coming-of-age tale Cuties, is attached to write and direct.
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Studiocanal is producing with Doucouré’s longtime producers at Bien Ou Bien Productions in co-production with CPB Films.
The project is in development with the support of Josephine Baker’s sons Jean-Claude Bouillon Baker, Brian Bouillon Baker and the Rainbow tribe, the affectionate name the artist gave to the 12 children from a variety of different backgrounds that she adopted after World War Two.
They said in a joint statement: “Josephine Baker. The universal artist, woman and mother. We are honoured to partner with Studiocanal and collaborate with Maïmouna on this feature film about the incredible and humanist achievements of our mother. Yes she could. And she did. Thank you Mum!”
Born in St Louis, Missouri, Baker spent most of her life in Europe, and mainly her adopted country of France, where she found fame in the cabaret halls of Paris in the 1920s and 1930s.
The artist supported the French resistance in World War Two, before resuming her career after the conflict. She was also a staunch civil rights activist and refused to perform in segregated parts of the U.S. in the 1950s.
Baker died in Paris in 1975, but in 2021 she was reburied in the Panthéon in Paris, becoming only the sixth woman to be honored in this way by France, alongside Simone Veil and Marie Curie.
Doucouré said Baker’s life and work as an artist had been an inspiration to her.
“It’s a huge honour and also a beautiful challenge to board this project. To think that through fiction I can tell her great and profoundly rich story, her beauty, her fights, her wounds and her humanity. I can’t wait to breathe new life into this incredible legend on screen,” she said.
The production will shoot in 2023 with casting yet to be announced.
French director Doucouré is best known for her debut 2020 feature Cuties, about a Senegalese teenager adjusting to life in Paris.
The film debuted at Sundance. It then gained unexpected notoriety in the U.S. later that year after Netflix’s marketing campaign for the film was accused of sexualizing its young cast.
Ted Sarandos said this had not been the intention but apologized to Doucouré for the furore and took down the offending poster from the platform.
Doucouré’s second film Hawa, produced by Bien ou Bien Productions for Amazon, debuted in Toronto this year in the Platform selection.
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