Girlhood (film)

Girlhood (French: Bande de filles, Gang of Girls) is a 2014 French drama film directed by Céline Sciamma, starring Karidja Touré. It is a coming of age film that focuses on the life of Marieme (Karidja Touré), a girl who lives in a rough neighborhood right outside of Paris The film discusses and challenges conceptions of race, gender and class; Sciamma's goal was to capture the stories of black teenagers, characters she claims are generally underdeveloped in French films. It was screened as part of the Directors' Fortnight section of the 2014 Cannes Film Festival. It was also screened in the Contemporary World Cinema section at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival. It received four nominations at the 40th César Awards, including Best Director for Céline Sciamma and Most Promising Actress for Karidja Touré.

Plot

Marieme (Karidja Touré) is a 16-year-old African-French teenager living in a poor Paris suburb. Academically Marieme struggles, which forces her into a vocational track where she will learn a certain trade. Due to her mother's demanding work schedule, Marieme's abusive brother is in charge. On her way out of school, the day she found out about vocational school, she is approached by a gang of girls, Lady (Assa Sylla) who is the leader of the group, and her followers, Fily (Marietou Tore), and Adiatou (Lindsay Karamoh), who ask Marieme if she wants to join them for a day trip to the city centre. They wear leather jackets, gold jewelry, and have pin straight hair. Marieme initially declines but after seeing the girls approached by a group of boys, including her brother's friend, Ismael (Idrissa Diabate) whom she has a crush on, Marieme joins them.

Para One

Jean-Baptiste de Laubier (born 2 April 1979), also known by his artist name Para One, is a French electronic music producer and film director.

Music career

Laubier first came to prominence as one of the main producers of French rap group TTC, and was responsible for producing their 2004 signature tune Dans Le Club. With fellow TTC producer Tacteel he made up the now defunct live/improvised electro outfit Fuck-A-Loop (whose only recorded material prior to 2007's nine hour digital album The Early Aughties was a 2006 remix of Ellen Allien's Down). In 2006, he remixed The Prime Time of Your Life by French house duo Daft Punk. In 2008, Para One got his biggest commercial hit by remixing #1-hit song Greatful Days by Japanese popstar Ayumi Hamasaki. This song was released on the album Ayu-mi-x 6: Gold.

He also produced the soundtrack of the film Water Lilies directed by Céline Sciamma in 2007. In 2011, the song "Always" from his and Tacteel's Fair Enough EP was featured in the same director's film Tomboy.

Where Are They Now

"Where Are They Now" is a song recorded by English Oi!/punk rock band Cock Sparrer in 1982, from their album Shock Troops. The lyrics comment on the previous six years of the punk subculture. The song portrays the early years of the punk movement in a negative light, bemoaning the lack of follow-through by the leading figures. It also comments on the band members' own naivete, exhorting listeners to not make the same idealistic mistakes. Its lyrics mention several punk legends. In an interview with the fanzine Schizoipunx from July 27, 2006, Mickey Beaufoy of Cock Sparrer stated:

The lyrics "Rotten on the telly, showing what a few choice words can do" refer to the Sex Pistols' lead singer Johnny Rotten and the Grundy incident, in which Rotten and other Sex Pistols swore on live television, sending Britain into an uproar.

The song has been covered and recorded by Swingin Utters, Strike Anywhere, Roger Miret And The Disasters and also, in their own language, the Spanish band La Polla Records and the German band Beck's Pistols.

Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Gail Winfrey, born January 29, 1954, is an American media proprietor, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist. She is best known for her talk show The Oprah Winfrey Show, which was the highest-rated program of its kind in history and was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2011. Dubbed the "Queen of All Media", she has been ranked the richest African-American of the 20th century, the greatest black philanthropist in American history, and is now North America's first and only multi-billionaire Black. Several assessments regard her as the most influential woman in the world. In 2013, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama and honorary doctorate degrees from Duke and Harvard.

Winfrey was born into poverty in rural Mississippi to a teenage single mother and later raised in an inner-city Milwaukee neighborhood. She has stated that she was molested during her childhood and early teens and became pregnant at 14; her son died in infancy. Sent to live with the man she calls her father, a barber in Tennessee, Winfrey landed a job in radio while still in high school and began co-anchoring the local evening news at the age of 19. Her emotional ad-lib delivery eventually got her transferred to the daytime-talk-show arena, and after boosting a third-rated local Chicago talk show to first place, she launched her own production company and became internationally syndicated.

Céline Sciamma

Céline Sciamma (born 12 November 1978) is a French screenwriter and film director.

Sciamma's work is strikingly minimalist, partly the legacy of her mentor, Xavier Beauvois, who advised her while she was a student at the major French film school, La Fémis. While highly formalist and idiosyncratic (notably in her lack of dialogue and very stylized mise-en-scene), Sciamma's filmmaking, beginning with Water Lilies relates closely to the characteristics of first-time filmmaking in France, notably in its emphasis on coming-of-age films focused on adolescents or pre-adolescents. Sciamma is very interested, moreover, in the fluidity of gender and sexual identity among girls during this formative period.

Life and career

Sciamma was raised in Cergy-Pontoise.

Her debut film Water Lilies was selected for screening in the section Un certain regard at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. The film secured three nominations for the 2008 César Awards; Sciamma was nominated for the 2008 César Award for Best Debut, and actresses Adèle Haenel and Louise Blachère were both nominated for the 2008 César Award for Most Promising Actress.