Culture 3 min read By Trevor Kendall
FKA twigs Will Portray Josephine Baker in Doucouré's Biopic
British singer and dancer FKA twigs will portray music-hall legend Josephine Baker in an ambitious production by Studiocanal, directed by Maïmouna Doucouré.
British singer and dancer FKA twigs will portray Josephine Baker, a major figure of the stage, in a sweeping and ambitious biopic directed by Maïmouna Doucouré and produced by Studiocanal. According to information gathered by Variety, filming has already begun in the Paris suburbs, where a sequence was shot one October afternoon in the Bois de Vincennes.
The project is described as a lavish production with international reach, set to trace the path of an artist whose life went far beyond the world of entertainment. An international stage star, Josephine Baker also served as a French Resistance agent during the Second World War. She was further involved in the American civil rights movement, an aspect of her life that remains central to how her memory is honored today.
The sequence shot in Vincennes is set in 1950s America, a decade when Baker, settled in France, regularly returned to American soil and when the question of race held a central place in her public life. For this scene, FKA twigs wears a cream coat with fine stripes, a dark beret and black gloves, an outfit that reflects the understated elegance expected of the character. The crew had to organize a very early morning, with hair and makeup beginning at 4 a.m., a sign of the scale of the shoot.
The choice of actress is no coincidence. FKA twigs has made her mark on the music scene through an aesthetic in which the body, movement and staging play a decisive role, elements that directly echo Baker's legacy, as her career was built around dance and stage presence. The parallel between the two artists is one of the arguments that guided the project, although the available notes do not detail the production's precise intentions on this point.
Several questions remain open, however. The available information does not specify how Maïmouna Doucouré will approach the complex life of Josephine Baker, whose political commitments, role in the Resistance and activism in the United States form a multifaceted and sometimes controversial path. It is also not established how FKA twigs intends to play the role, nor what treatment will be given to the historical dimension of the story. The film's release date and full cast have not yet been confirmed.
The project brings together a French director known for her focus on women's stories and a British singer-dancer whose career rests on a strong visual and physical dimension. It is part of a broader movement to revisit major African American artistic figures and their place in European and American history, at a time when studios are investing more in biographies of personalities who shaped both popular culture and political history.
Source: variety.com
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