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• Lumiere
• Admissions in 3 European countries

• Toronto 2019 (Line up)

Year of production : 1989

Director(s) : Euzhan PALCY

Following her acclaimed debut Sugar Cane Alley, and with Hollywood funders chasing after her, Martinique-born Euzhan Palcy went from the West Indies to South Africa with her next project — and became the first Black woman to direct a Hollywood studio film. A Dry White Season is Palcy's adaptation of Afrikaner novelist André Brink's tale of moral and political awakening in Apartheid-era Johannesburg. White, well-intentioned Ben du Toit (a heady Donald Sutherland) is a South African–born schoolteacher forced to confront his privileged inertia after the brutal assault of his Black gardener's son at the hands of white, government-backed authorities. Sutherland anchors a multifarious cast that includes Susan Sarandon, celebrated South African stage actor Zakes Mokae — the star among a talented ensemble of Black South Africans whom Palcy insisted on casting over Black American actors — and a towering Marlon Brando in his return to the screen after a nine-year hiatus.