Six movies starring black actresses to set the mood for Women’s History Month

Girlhood

The movie stars Karidja Toure, Assa Sylla, Lindsay karamoh, Nina Melo, Tatiana Rojo, among others.

Plot

Four French girls run the streets of a Paris suburb as a gang. In the movie, a group of teenage girls in the working-class suburbs of Paris dissect the unsettling view of how female identity is crushed, controlled and created in spite of patriarchal repression.

Marieme (Karidja Toure) lives with her mother and sisters in a cramped apartment, where she’s routinely bossed and beaten by her domineering older brother. Stoic and steady-eyed, Marieme desperately wants to attend an academic high school, but her grades are consigning her to vocational education.

Glumly contemplating her grim home life and unpromising prospects, she falls in with a three-girl gang led by the lanky, charismatic Lady (Assa Sylla), who promptly takes Marieme, now “Vic”, and leads her into a world of female gangs that is simultaneously frightening, liberating and empowering. On the street they strike a tougher pose, mouthing off to rival groups of girls, getting into fights and intimidating passers-by for money. With her new found lifestyle, how will her future end up?